


Summer Showdowns

by EmrysTheMerlin



Series: The Heart of A Hero [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon 2012)
Genre: BAMF Peter Parker, Building trust, F/M, Fem! Peter Parker - Freeform, Gen, Multi, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Team time, Tony Stark Has A Heart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-08-28
Packaged: 2019-05-19 20:41:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 39
Words: 52,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14880851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmrysTheMerlin/pseuds/EmrysTheMerlin
Summary: SHEILD has fallen. Tony Stark, her adoptive father, has discovered her dual identity. But life goes on for Piper Parker as the summer before her Senior Year begins. New love, new enemies and new intrigue awaits around every corner for New York's favorite wall crawler and her team, newly dubbed the Ultimates. But as the mystery behind the deaths of Richard and Mary Parker finally come to light will she be able to continue on a track that may bring the downfall of those closest to her?





	1. Time With Friends

**Author's Note:**

> Alright story three! So as you've guessed this is the sequel to Great Power, third in The Heart Of A Hero series. This one deviates from the original shows cannon for a bit but I promise we'll get there. But for now here we are, enjoy.

Piper Parker was running late, what else was new. She ran out of the subway and straight into a tall thin figure. Her baseball cap went flying and her hood fell. She swore and scrambled for her hat. It was grabbed by the figure she’d run into. She smiled and brushed it off. It had Thor’s hammer on it and Piper pulled her hood up, trying to keep her face as hidden as possible. 

Even though it had been about three months since her identity as Tony Starks adopted daughter was revealed the press still hadn’t gotten the interview they wanted. But anyone who could was selling pictures to any magazine and news paper who would buy them. The boy held out her hat. She smiled and took it. 

“Thanks.” She said shoving it back on her head. He nodded. 

“No problem.” She smiled again and ran off. The boys eyes followed her as she disappeared around the corner. 

MJ’s foot tapped on the sidewalk as she checked her watch again. She sighed as she stepped down the sidewalk. She turned as a familiar voice called out to her. 

“MJ! Wait up.” She smiled as Piper came racing down the sidewalk in a Captain America hoddie and a Thor baseball cap and what looked like a pair of her dads shades. 

“Thought you weren’t gonna show up for a minute there.” Piper laughed. 

“When have I ever intentionally ditched you?” MJ rolled her eyes and grabbed Piper’s arm. 

“You ditch me and Harry all the time, that’s why you’re here.” Piper flinched slightly. MJ was right of course but Piper couldn’t exactly tell her that she had ditched them so often to go web swinging around town saving lives. 

“Dad and I got caught up in the lab.” That wasn’t technically a lie, they had been distracted in the lab working on the suit redesign for Spidergirl. It wasn’t going well. Tony wanted a full suit of armor, with every defensive measure he could think of. Piper thought that was a bit of overkill. Besides it put her identity in jeopardy and even if she was strong enough to lift that much metal, which she knew she was, it cut her off from most of her powers. She couldn’t wall crawl through metal, and the stiffness cut off most of her flexibility. She’d put her foot down after a short argument. MJ laughed. 

“I know, you two are always working on something.” MJ dragged Piper into the studio. She shook her head. She couldn’t help but wonder why she let herself get dragged into these things as MJ led her into a changing room. 

 

Flash Thompson couldn’t believe he let Liz drag him here. He was just glad that no one from school was here as he glanced around the dace studio. Liz did look particularly good in tights though he mused as the door from the girls changing room opened. He swore as he spotted Mary Jane Watson stepping out in a black leotard and tights. Then someone else followed her in, someone he’d been avoiding for three months. Piper Parker laughed as Flash stared. 

The last time he’d seen her in something close to what she was wearing now was when they were ten at a pool party. He’d pushed her into the pool that day. Not four months later her uncle had been murdered and she’d disappeared for a week. When she’d showed back up she was more surreptitious, someone had taken her in but she refused to talk about it. He’d never really stopped ribbing her about it. Not until the truth came out that her adoptive father was in fact Tony Stark. He’d avoided her since. 

He blinked hard. Piper normally wore baggy clothes and the difference in the leotard was stunning. He’d never knew Parker was built like that. She was slim, she always had been but the muscles he could see beyond the tights were well toned. The arms were too and he could almost make out a six pack through the black spandex. 

“Remind me why I told you that Nat taught me ballete?” MJ laughed. 

“Because you tell me everything. Or at least you used to. You never did tell me what happened between you and Sam.” Piper shrugged away from her. 

“Not really something I wanna talk about right now. We’re still friends so that’s good but honestly I don’t know.” MJ frowned as Piper stretched her leg up on the Barr. 

“Do you still like him?” Piper shrugged. 

“I don’t know, maybe. Can we talk about something else, anything else.” Her eyes scanned the room and went wide as she spotted a familiar figure, two actually. 

“Like maybe why Flash and Liz are here?” MJ glanced around and spotted them shaking her head as she shrugged. 

“No idea.” Both of them stopped talking as the instructor walked in. She smiled around, raising an eyebrow when she spotted Piper. Her face had been plastered all over the papers lately. 

“Miss Watson, I didn’t realize that the friend you were bringing was a celebrity. Welcome to the class Miss Stark.” Piper frowned slightly. 

“I prefer Parker, or you can just call Piper.” The instructor nodded. 

“Alright Miss Parker, do you have any previous ballet experience?” Piper smiled and nodded, stretching her other leg up on the Barr. The instructor nodded, motioning to a speaker setup. 

“Pick a song then, lets see what you can do.” She heard Flash snicker as she headed over to the speaker set. The instructor shot him a glare as she scrolled through the songs. She made her selection, an acoustic cover of One Last Time by Ariana Grande, and stretched her back. The music began and she let it carry her off for a little while. 

 

Flash would never admit it out loud but he was impressed. He’d never known a person could bend the way she did, let alone Parker herself. Spinning and twisting to the melody she seemed to become unaware of the world around her. She looked more relaxed when dancing than he’d seen her since her uncle died. Soon, too soon if you asked him, the music ended and she landed in a resting pose and the room burst into applause. Even Liz looked impressed. The instructor nodded. 

“You’ve had some professional training?” Piper shrugged. 

“I mean kind of. My aunt was a prima ballerina, briefly. She taught me.” Also not a lie. Of course she’d been on a deep cover mission when she was a prima but ballet was always something Natasha excelled in. She even had her own studio in Stark Tower. The instructor nodded. 

“It shows. You wouldn’t be interested in joining us on a more permanent basis would you Miss Parker?” Piper was about to answer when her phone buzzed. She smiled apologetically and pulled it out of her bra. Glancing at the caller ID Flash saw her eyes narrow slightly. 

“Sorry I gotta take this.” She stepped out of the room. Liz elbowed him and he realized he’d been staring. MJ frowned at the door. The class continued after a moment. Several hours passed in which Flash realized that there were more muscles than the ones he worked at football. He was going to be a sore mess after this. At least they weren’t doing lifts like Liz had threatened. These girls were definitely more heavy than a football or even what he normally benched. Piper never reappeared.


	2. Cracked Drive

Piper web swung her way to Stark Tower. Her father’s call had sounded urgent. But he’d refused to tell her what was going on. She made it in record time and pulled open a lab window. She shut it behind her and pulled off her mask. She glanced around, it was still so weird to be in her costume when dad was in the building. She was alone in her lab. 

“JARVIS, where’s dad?” The AI whirred to life 

“Your father is in his lab next door.” Piper nodded and thanked the AI before heading into the lab next door, resisting the urge to change first. She poked her head in and found him sitting at the main computer console in the lab.

“Dad?” He nodded motioning her into the room. She smiled and stepped inside. He glanced at her and rolled his eyes at her spare costume, still spandex. 

“What’s up? It better be good, I bailed on MJ and she’s gonna be pissed.” Tony laughed lightly and nodded. 

“You know sometimes I wonder if MJ is Nat’s illegitimate kid. She’s definitely scary enough to be.” Piper laughed as she set her mask down on one of the tables. “But I didn’t call you here to question your friends parentage. Grab a seat.” Piper pulled up a chair and noticed that Tony was looking much more grim than normal.

“Dad, what’s going on?” He sighed and moved slightly to the side. Piper spotted the USB drive she’d found in her Uncle’s house. The SHIELD USB that had revealed that her parents weren’t scientists but SHEILD agents. With everything that had happened over the past few months she had forgotten. She stared at it then her eyes flicked to the screen. It was black and simply read ‘Password:’. She cleared her throat. 

“Did you…” She couldn’t bring herself to finish. Tony nodded and motioned her closer. She pulled her chair over and sat staring at the screen for a moment. Then she took a deep breath. Tony laid a hand on her shoulder and stood. She caught his wrist. There was a pause for a moment. 

“T… Thank you dad.” Tony nodded and left the room. Piper took a deep breath and pulled the microphone towards herself. She stared at the screen for a moment. 

“Open up.” She spoke it into the microphone and the same mechanical voice from Eddie’s apartment spoke. 

‘Voice Print Recognized. Subject Identified. Welcome Piper Parker.’ She blinked at the SHEILD logo on the screen. She bypassed the file with her name on it instead clicking on the other file. This one labeled testimony. She paused then clicked on it. 

The screen changed and a new batch of files appeared on the screen. Many of them appeared to be copies written of testimonials. She skimmed a few of them, flinching at the descriptions within. Oscorp had been conducting live human experimentation. She hesitated before she clicked on one of the videos. A familiar face made her pause. He was cleaner, his hair neat and his glasses not tinted red. His skin wasn’t as pale, and he didn’t have the extra limbs but there was no doubt in her mind who that was. 

‘This is Dr. Otto Octavius. Subdermal armor test one.’ He looked nervous as he tightened the restraints on a tall man. He was stripped to the waist, he had short brown hair, nearly shaved to the scalp.

‘Subject’s name is Flint Marco. Age seventeen.’ Piper’s eyes widened. ‘The subject will be bombarded with irradiated particulates that will build up in his system, creating subdermal armor.’ Doctor Octavius paused and someone cleared their throat behind him.

‘Problem Dr.?’ The doctor shook his head and flicked a switch on the keyboard. A clear partition rose between the control panel and the teenager, good lord he had only been a year older than she was now. Bright light flashed and particulates began to fly around the room. Piper watched wide eyed as the teen, Flint Marco screamed, holes appearing in his skin. Doctor Octavius reached out to turn off the experiment but a hand stopped him. 

‘Let it finish Octavius.’ The teen was screaming as more and more of him seemed to peel off, lost in the swirl of sand. Piper’s hand was pressed to her mouth as she watched the teen melt into a pile of sand. Only then was the experiment allowed to stop. Dr. Octavius was shaking as he turned to someone just out of the camera’s view. 

‘What do we do?’ The voice sighed. 

‘We sweep up and try again.’ A movement beyond the partition caught Piper’s attention and she swore as the pile of sand in the other room reformed into the teen, though it kept dripping sand as it tried to walk forwards and collapsed. 

‘What did you do to me!? You said it was a simple test!’ A third voice echoed from just off camera.

‘Hey Sandman. Chill.’ Vents opened and the space flooded with what looked like liquid nitrogen. The sandy figure screamed as he froze in place. 

‘Hmmm a better result than we anticipated but not what we wanted. Put him in cold storage until we can find a use for him. The screen went black. Piper swore as she snatched up her phone. She dialed fast. 

Eddie was walking out of the Bugle when his phone rang. 

‘I’ve got a spider in my head.’ He laughed at the ringtone and answered. 

“Hey Pipes. How’s things? Whoa slow down. Ok, ok, Stark Tower. Ten minutes got it.” Eddie hailed a cab and raced downtown. He arrived quickly and JARVIS directed him to the main lab. 

 

“Jesus fuck.” He shook his head at the video Piper had just shown him. “What the hell are we supposed to do with this?” Piper shook her head. 

“I don’t know. A few months ago I’d say give it to SHEILD, but that’s not an option any more.” She rewound the video by about a minute. “He mentioned ‘Cold Storage’…” Eddie turned to her. 

“You have any idea who was on the other side of the camera?” Piper nodded. 

“Yeah, one of them anyway. One of them was Norman Osborn. I’d know his voice anywhere but the other one, I’m not sure. I’m having JARVIS run it through the database as we speak but its gonna take time.” She shook her head. “If I can find this Cold Storage though…” She trailed off as Eddie voiced her concern. 

“What do we do with that information if we find it? Hand it off to your dad? What about Harry? I mean his dad is already missing, well that’s what the world thinks anyway.” Piper frowned down at the symbol on her chest. She’d told Eddie everything that had happened with the Goblin, she needed an outsiders opinion on the events. He had been floored at just how bad her luck had gotten. How everything had gone so wrong so fast. 

“I didn’t say we were going to tell anyone, not yet. This stays between the two of us.” She pulled the USB out of the computer. “At least for now.” Eddie nodded. 

“Sure you don’t want to pull your team in on this?” Piper shook her head. 

“Not yet. They have their own things to do right now.” Eddie nodded and ran a hand through his hair. 

“Ok, where do we get started?” Piper shook her head. 

“I’ve been digging for buried Labs, like the ones Octavius has been using. Looking for him while I’m at it. We start there.” Eddie nodded. He pushed his chair out from the desk.

“On a lighter note MJ got the internship with the Bugle.” Piper grinned, it was nice to know that life continued despite the madness.


	3. Internships

The intercom buzzed and Piper clicked open the channel as Eddie grabbed his bag. He had an event the Bugle wanted him to photograph nearby. The intercom flickered to life, revealing the face of Dr. Curt Connors. Piper held back her flinch. Life hadn’t been going all that well for one of her favorite scientists recently. His arm had been crushed under a large slab of metal during the Goblin’s attack on the New York Helicarier. Even the best doctors money could buy hadn’t been able to save the arm. It had been amputated and Tony had offered him his old job at Stark Industries back. He’d accepted and was currently the head of the Bio Chem division of Stark Industries. He also worked with the Avengers to help identify and neutralize bio toxins and dangerous chemicals left behind by AIM and Hydra. At that very moment though he was six or seven floors below her, working in the R and D Bio Chem lab.

“What’s up Doc?” She grinned at him. He shook his head slightly. 

“I need to ask you a favor. I’ve got two new interns who are supposed to arrive in a few minutes but Pepper got called away for a meeting and Tony is… intimidating.” Piper laughed and nodded. 

“Give me ten, gotta change real quick. Tell Tish I’ll meet them in the Lobby.” Dr. Connors nodded. 

“Much appreciated Miss Parker.” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“Still Piper Doc.” He laughed and hung up. Piper bid Eddie farewell as she headed to the shower. She changed into a deep blue pencil skirt and a white button up over a black tank top. She snagged her rarely used lab coat out of her lab on the way down the hall. 

Blue eyes stared around the lobby from behind a set of wire rim glasses. A smile lit up his face, he still couldn’t believe that he was here. Avengers Tower, it was bigger than he’d thought it would be, or maybe it just felt bigger. He went up to the pretty brunette receptionist. She smiled at him. 

“Hello, how can I help you?” He grinned back. 

“Hi, my name is Glen. I’m here for the internship with Doctor Connors.” The woman nodded and tapped on her keyboard. 

“Last name please?” Glen nodded. 

“Stacy, Glen Stacy.” The receptionist nodded. A tall boy with short dirty blonde hair stepped up next to him as the receptionist pulled open a drawer on her desk. She handed Glen a packet and a pen before turning to the other boy.

“How can I help you?” The other boy smiled cheekily. 

“I’m here for the technical internship.” The receptionist nodded. 

“Name please.” Before the boy could answer a voice echoed from behind them. 

“Harley Keener! Is that you?” The other boy turned and Glen glanced over his shoulder and spotted a familiar girl standing four feet from them. The other boy Harley smiled and waved as the girl strode over to them and wrapped him in a hug. 

“I haven’t seen you in forever! How are you, you fourteen year old disaster?” Harley laughed.

“I’ve been alright. In town for the summer, the mechanic made sure I got a spot in the tech internship.” The girl laughed, bright blue eyes sparkling. 

“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s already tried to reserve you a spot at MIT.” Harley laughed. 

“Yeah well you’re looking pretty good yourself Miss Iron Lass.” The girls stuck out her tongue at him. 

“You suck Harley.” The receptionist handed Harley a packet as well and the girl turned to Glen. 

“I’m sorry I haven’t introduced myself.” She held out a hand. “I’m Piper Parker. You must be…” She glanced down at the Stark Pad in her other hand. “Mr. Stacy.” He nodded and shook her hand. 

“Just Glen please. I actually knew who you are. You’ve kinda been all over the news for a few months.” She nodded slightly as Harley was pulled away by another lab coat clad person armed with a Stark Pad. Glen ran a hand through his hair. “Plus you almost ran me over when you were getting off the subway this morning.” She blinked at him for a minute before she went bright red, realizing that she had in fact seen him before. He stifled a chuckle and took the badge from the receptionist. Her face was still bright red as she managed to speak again. 

“I am so sorry. I..” He shook his head.

“No, no it’s cool. It was actually kind of cute.” Her blush returned full force. She spluttered slightly as a skinny African American boy stepped up to the desk and received a packet from the receptionist. There was a slightly awkward silence between the two of them before the new boy received a badge as well and stepped over to them. Piper blinked for a minute before she plastered a smile back on her face, her cheeks still pink. 

“You must be Mr. Attah.” The boy nodded.

“You can call me Abe, Miss. Stark.” She shook her head at him, seemingly composing herself. 

“Please call me Piper. Let me be the first to welcome the both of you to Stark Industries.” She led them over to the elevators. “Today will be an easy day, I’ll be your tour guide. I do need to tell you that you need to have your badge on you and visible at all times. If your badge is lost you will be removed from the premises. I know it sounds harsh but we take safety and security very seriously here at SI.” She led them into the elevator. 

“JARVIS would you please take us to the Recreation Level, please.” The elevator began to move. 

“JARVIS runs most of the tower, he’s very helpful and your badges let him know what you do and don’t have access to. Say hello to the new interns J.” 

“Hello, Mr. Stacy and Mr. Attah.” Piper smiled at the looks on their faces. 

“He’ll be happy to help if you ever get lost or direct you back to the appropriate levels if you accidently wander out of the areas you’re allowed in.” The doors slid open and she led them out. “This as I said is the Recreation Level. Most people take their breaks here. We have a five star cafeteria, that’s to your left. Free for employees and interns. A coffee bar that makes Starbucks look like it’s simple also free, that’s to your right. A gym, I’ll admit that sees less use. A somewhat regular break room.” She gestured to each room in turn as she walked them down the hall. The ‘somewhat regular breakroom’ had plush couches, three tvs and what looked like sleeping pods, like the kind you found in Japanese hotels. 

 

“We try to make sure our employees are always well rested and have everything they need. But overnights happen sometimes so it’s nice to have somewhere for them to rest when it’s needed.” She waved to a few scientist who were drinking coffee and watching what looked like Bill Nye The Science Guy. They waved back and the small tour group continued down the hall. “There are several bathrooms on every level along with chemical showers and emergency eye wash stations.” She stepped up to another elevator. It clicked open and she motioned them inside. 

“So now we’re heading into the actual R and D levels. Now lab safety is of the utmost importance. So we do ask that you follow the strict dress code outlined in the packet you are about to receive.” They stepped out of the elevator into a small foyer. Piper gestured to a closet full of lab coats. 

“Go ahead and find a lab coat that will fit you.” Piper grabbed a set of packets off the table. The boys pulled on their lab coats and pinned their nametags to the coats. Piper handed each of them a packet with their names on them. 

“Alright gentlemen time to meet the Doc.” She led them through the doors into the main Bio Chem Lab.


	4. Maybe

The lab was huge, it looked like it took up the entire floor of the building with only small office spaces set into the walls here and there. It was a clean white with different areas working on different projects. Piper spotted Dr. Connors quickly and smiled at him. She still felt guilty looking at the stump of a shoulder that was all that was left of his arm though. He nodded to them and Piper led the two boys to the holo-table he was working on. She smiled a bit sadly at the project he was working on. It had been something he and her father, Richard Parker, had been tinkering with years ago. He smiled at the group, the two boys looked a bit starstruck. 

“Dr. Connors, this is Glen Stacy and Abe Attah, your new interns.” Dr Connors turned and reached out his hand to the two of them. 

“Nice to meet you both and welcome to Stark Industries. I hope Miss Parker here wasn’t too intimidating.” Piper laughed. 

“When have I ever scared off true talent Doc?” The doctor grinned at her and began to explain the research they were doing into cross species genetics and the possible medical applications. Piper checked her watch and thought as Doc Connors led the interns around the room. MJ still hadn’t called her, probably upset she’d ditched the dance class. Sam and Luke were sparing with Captain America today, he’d said his friend Sam Wilson might drop by but he wasn’t sure. Danny was helping Dr. Banner with his mediation, that left Ava. If she couldn’t tell her dad about what the drive had contained maybe it was a good idea to let the others in on the information after all. She shook her head as the interns made their way back over to her. 

“Alright so since so many internships are starting at the same time dad planned a little get together for everyone, just so everyone can get to know each other and maybe make some more friends.” Glen and Abe nodded at her and they all headed back over to the elevator. They left their lab coats, making sure to take their badges with them as they headed up a few levels to the conference level. Piper kept her lab coat on though. They arrived and were greeted with a small crowd, maybe twenty people, all ages fourteen to eighteen, milling about. There was a large refreshment table set up and Piper smiled at the two boys. 

“And I’m afraid this is where we part ways. Go mingle, have fun, make new friends. I have a few projects to work on.” She stepped away and made her way into the crowd, towards a different elevator. Before she could reach it though someone grabbed her shoulder. She turned, coming face to face with her father. He grinned at her. 

“You’re not slipping off so easily. MJ texted me, asked why you ditched dance class. I told her I called you with a tech emergency. She forgives you but as repayment you have to stick around and not leave me with a bunch of kids.” Piper snorted slightly and snagged a crystal flute of what ended up being sparkling grape juice off a tray. 

“You are great with kids whether you admit it or not. Don’t you have a speech to make?” He nodded and stepped up onto the small stage. The crowd of teens grew quiet as Tony smiled at them.

“Welcome, one and all to Stark Industries!” There was a smattering of applause. “Each and every one of you is here because you are exceptionally talented, be it in electrics, bio chemistry, coding, bio electrics, honestly I could keep listing all day but that’s not why we’re here. We’re here because we all share something, a hope for the future. That hope comes from kids like you, kids who stand up and let their intelligence speak for them. So, let’s skip the speeches for now and see what those big brains of yours can do. Mingle, make friends, networking is half our jobs, never know when you might need another brain to help out. Cheers.” He raised his glass and the crowd applauded and cheered for a moment before beginning to mingle. Piper made her way over to the refreshment table and grabbed a slider. Someone stepped up next to her and grabbed a few pigs in a blanket. She glanced to the side and saw the cute blonde, Glen, grinning at her. 

“You seemed pretty eager to get out of here, how come you didn’t?” Piper laughed slightly. 

“I… I don’t really like crowds, too loud.” She wasn’t lying, ever since she’d been bitten by the Oscorp spider her senses had been dialed up to eleven, sometimes higher. Crowds tended to give her headaches. At least this place wasn’t blaring music. Glen nodded popping one of the treats into his mouth. 

“Yeah I understand that.” Piper raised an eyebrow at him, he laughed slightly. 

“My dad is the police chief, he drags me and my little brothers to big police events all the time.” Piper raised an eyebrow. She saw the resemblance now. Chief Stacy was always the one declining comment on the Spidergirl. They had the same nose. 

“So what’s the son of the police chief doing in a Stark Industries internship?” Glen laughed. 

“Sometimes I wonder the same thing, but then I got a look at the lab and got to meet Dr. Connors!” Piper giggled at the expression on his face. He blushed slightly. 

“Sorry this is all probably pretty dorky to you, but honestly I’ve read all of Dr. Connors papers, Dr. Banners too. It’s fascinating stuff.” Piper shook her head. 

“No, it’s not dorky at all. I still stay up reading scientific journals, honestly I don’t remember the last time I read something that wasn’t a science journal. Gets me teased a lot in school.” It was Glen’s turn to laugh.

“Somehow I can’t picture someone teasing you.” Piper blushed bright red. 

“You clearly don’t go to Midtown High.” Glen shook his head. 

“Nope, Central Park East.” Piper smiled as she snagged another slider. They kept talking as they drifted away from the table. A few hours later Piper noticed that the other interns were starting to trickle out of the room. She glanced down at her watch and laughed slightly. Glen raised an eyebrow at her.

“We’ve been talking for three hours.” Glen checked his watch and swore.

“Damn it I missed my subway. I’m gonna get in so much trouble.” Piper stood and held out a hand. 

“Well we can’t have our interns getting in trouble can we.” He stared at her for a moment then followed her out of the room. She led him to a garage and told him to wait there, while he waited he called his dad to let him know he was still at Stark Industries and would be home as soon as he could. He glanced up as the door Piper had left through reopen. She stepped back through it but she was dressed in something different this time. Her blue pencil skirt had been replaced with a pair of well worn jeans, her button up with a leather jacket. She had a helmet under her arm. He blinked at her for a moment. Then he grinned. 

“I am just not sure what to make of you Miss Parker.” She frowned at him as she led him over to a beautiful blue motorcycle. She handed him the helmet she’d been holding and picked up the one that had been on the seat of the bike. 

“What do you mean?” He shook his head. 

“Science nerd to biker girl in under ten minutes.” She laughed and he took the helmet slipping it on. 

“For your information the leather is for safety, road rash is no joke.” He laughed as she mounted the bike and gestured him to get on behind her. He did, hesitantly wrapping his arms around her waist. She laughed as she gunned the engine and drove out of the underground garage. 

They arrived at the apartment building quickly and Glen laughed as he dismounted the bike and laughed. 

“That was a lot of fun Miss Parker thank you.” He handed her back the helmet which she slipped it into the saddlebag and flipped up the visor on her helmet. 

“It’s just Piper please.” He smiled again and nodded.

“Will I see you in the lab tomorrow?” She grinned and flipped down her visor. 

“Maybe.” She revved the engine and he stepped back as she drove off. He smiled to himself as he made his way inside.


	5. Upgrades

The next morning found Piper in her lab tinkering with a few upgrades for some costumes. There was a knock at the door and she glanced up to see Ava peeking around the corner. She grinned and nodded.

“Come on in, perfect timing actually, I need you to test something for me.” The door slid open and Ava stepped in holding two plates piled high with pancakes. Piper grinned at her. 

“How did I survive mornings without you?” Ava laughed. 

“I honestly don’t know. Seriously from what Nat and Clint have told me you don’t take good enough care of yourself.” Piper rolled her eyes.

“You sound like Pepper.” Ava grinned. 

“Good that means I’m making sense.” Piper stuck her tongue out at her friend and gestured her over. Ava set down the pancakes and stepped over to her. She raised an eyebrow as she spotted Nova’s costume in her hands, minus the helmet. 

“Ok so I have been working on some upgrades for everybody. Tap that piece there.” She hesitated but tapped the golden circle. Several pieces of equipment spread out along the gold lines in the suit. A small faceplate popped out of the top. It didn’t unfold far and Ava frowned.

“What is it?” Piper held the costume up.

“It’s a self supplying respirator. Just for underwater use but I’m working on making it space worthy. It’ll form a seal with his helmet.” Piper tapped the same golden circle and the mechanics shrunk back down. Ava watched closely. 

“How’d you manage to do that?” Piper grinned. 

“Nano tech. Dad and I have been toying with it for a while. I’ve made one for everyone. Though everybody but Nova gets a full helmet.” Ava nodded and took Sam’s costume, replacing it with one of the plates of pancakes. Piper grinned and picked up the fork on the plate before digging in. They ate in silence for a while. Once Piper had finished her pancakes she got a look in her eyes, a look Ava recognized. 

“Ok what did you find?” Piper jumped slightly and blinked at her friend, looking confused. “You have that look in your eye.” Piper frowned.

“What look?” Ava snorted.

“That look like you have to handle every problem yourself. You don’t, that’s what got you in some shit three months ago.” Piper’s head tilted towards the floor. Then she nodded and pushed the now empty plate aside. She tapped a spot on her desk and a small compartment opened up. She pulled the SHEILD USB out of the compartment. She tapped it on the desk for a moment before she nodded to herself. 

“Dad finally cracked the encryption on the USB. It’s full of evidence against Oscorp. They were conducting human experiments. As far as I can tell not all of the subjects even knew what they were doing. It also mentions Cold Storage, which as far as I can tell is where the failed experiments get taken. And I don’t know what to do. Harry’s already been through too much and would have been all of five years old when the earliest recording of the experiments was taken. And it’s not like we can bring Norman in on charges, cause he’s still a giant green monster.” Ava pulled her friend into a hug. Ava had become much more protective of the other girl after Piper had taken a bullet for her during the fall of SHEILD. 

“I don’t know what to do.” Ava nodded. 

“I think we need to keep doing what we’ve been doing. Look for Doc Oc and the Goblin. Work on a cure. We’ll put Cold Storage on our list of stuff to find. We can’t do everything at once. But we can do almost everything together.” Piper nodded into her shoulder. “We’ll tell the boys later today.” Piper smiled at her. 

“Thanks Ava.” Ava grinned at her friend. 

“Hey, that’s what friends are for Piper.” Piper nodded and Ava went back to her pancakes as Piper slipped the USB back into its hidden compartment and turned back to the costumes. 

 

Sam flopped down onto the mat with a swear. Luke and Danny weren’t far behind him. A laugh sounded above them and Natasha Romanov leaned over them. 

“Had enough boys?” They all nodded, a laugh sounded from the doorway. They looked up and spotted Piper and Ava in the doorway holding folded costumes. 

“I see you guys are doing the no power training. It doesn’t get easier. Trust me.” Piper said as she stepped in and held out a hand to Sam. He grudgingly took it. Things between the two of them had been tense since they stopped going out, well neither of them knew if the two dates they had been on could really qualify as dating or not. But none the less they still worked together. Piper had even arranged for Sam to fly back out to Nevada to see his mom and sister for two weeks at the start of the summer. She’d offered something similar to the others but they’d all turned her down, though none of them had said why. She didn’t push. She helped Luke up as Ava pulled Danny to his feet, the two spending just enough time staring into each others eyes to make the others smile. She handed Luke his uniform. 

“I’ve made a few modifications to the suits, hope nobody minds. Just basic stuff really. Bulletproofing, underwater capabilities so waterproofing, heaters for arctic missions. Developed a better communications system too.” She said holding up a small box. She popped it open and tapped her finger against a tiny circle of electrics. She had Luke bend so she could reach his ear. She carefully inserted the tiny device into the hollow of his ear. It blinked for a second before it flashed and blended into his skin. The others blinked. 

“That’s not under his skin is it?” Sam asked squirming slightly. Piper shook her head. 

“Nope, just the cloaking tech at work.” She gestured Danny forwards and he let her place the device. Then she gestured to Sam. He shook his head. 

“Nah. I’ll let Ava go first.” Piper shook her head. 

“Ava already has hers. She got hers first.” Sam sighed and stepped forwards, letting Piper put the com in his ear. She nodded and stepped back. 

“Alright so the easiest way to turn it on and off is to tug on your earlobe, but it’ll also activate to a few specific words. Our Superhero names, names of the villains that are in the Avengers database. When one activates the others do too.” She demonstrated, pulling on her own earlobe. There was a faint click and her voice echoed slightly as it was transmitted through the coms. “They have a fifty mile range, but only cause they’re so small. I’m working on improving that. Waterproof, shock resistant, and they shouldn’t dislodge easily.” The others nodded. A panel on the wall flashed and JARVIS spoke. 

“Miss Parker, Doctor Connors is attempting to contact you.” Piper nodded and stepped over to the panel. She clicked it on. 

“Doc, what’s up?” The doctor smiled and spoke. 

“There’s something I want to show you, come down to the Bio Chem lab!” She nodded and headed out of the room.


	6. Under A Certain Light

Piper arrived at the lab level and was directed into one of the small booths along the wall. There were seven of them, each had the capability to block out light, sound, smells or any number of other things on command. They were big enough for a small lab table and at least four people. The door opened to her and she was greeted by a dimly lit room that held only Dr. Connors and Glen Stacy. Abe was across the room running a few formulas. Piper smiled at the two and stepped into the booth. Dr. Connors grinned up at her he was leaning over near a terrarium. Glen had a small UV light in his hands, like the kind CSI’s used to find blood splatter. 

“Ah Miss Parker.” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“It’s still Piper Doc. You called?” The doctor beckoned her over and smiled. At first glance the terrarium was empty but on closer inspection Piper spotted several medium sized spiders. She raised an eyebrow. 

“We’re experimenting with spiders now doc?” The doctor heard the real question under her words, ‘Do we want another Oscorp incident?’. He shook his head slightly. 

“No I’m teaching, besides spiders have almost nothing to do with my research, since their systems are so different to humans.” Piper nodded. 

“Alright teach away doctor.” The doctor nodded and began to explain different intricacies of spider’s and their variations between different species. Piper honestly thought she knew why Doc Connors had called her down here, she was less well versed in her ‘spider breatharian’, as Thor called them, than she should be. Oh she knew everything Oscorp had known about the spider that bit her but not too much about other species. He finished his first half of the speech and Piper leaned forwards next to him, across the table from Glen who was still holding the UV light in his hand.

“So what’s the UV light for?” Doctor Connors smiled.

“JARVIS, would you be so kind as to hit the lights?” The AI complied plunging the room into darkness. The UV light was flicked on and Piper laughed as the spiders in the terrarium began to softly glow. Doc Connors nodded at her reaction. 

“Some spiders are bioluminescent. Fascinating isn’t it?” Piper nodded but Glen wasn’t paying attention to him anymore. His eyes were fixed on Piper’s hand on the desk. Her fingernails were bright purple, glowing in the dark. But the glow didn’t stop there. A soft purple glow toned the skin of her hand, shot through with swirls of bright yellow, almost… almost like the pattern on the back of a spider. His eyes flicked up to her face and he blinked in surprise as he saw two eerie green orbs shining back at him. His eyes flicked back to her hand and this time Piper noticed and stuffed her hand back in her pocket. She smiled, white teeth glinting in the UV light. Glen didn’t point the light right at her but some of the light caught her face as she turned away. The purple glow was there too. 

“It is fascinating! I gotta go though doc, one of my projects is almost done. Gotta make sure it comes out ok.” With that she practically bolted from the room. Glen stared after her for a moment until Dr. Connors had JARVIS hit the lights again. The doctor frowned after her. 

“That was a little odd.” Glen nodded as Dr. Connors directed him on how to feed the specimens. When they were done in what everyone called the Spider Room Glen sat down at his workstation and pulled up the search browser. He looked over his shoulder before he began to type. His question was simple.

‘Can human beings have eyeshine?’ He skimmed a few articles until he came across the answer he was looking for.

“Eyeshine occurs when light enters the eye passes through the rods and cones of the retina, strikes a special membrane behind the retina and is reflected back through the eye to the light source. This special mirrorlike membrane is called tapetum and is not present in the human eye.” Glen read it fast, muttering along with the words of the article. “Several types of night hunting animals possess this unique attribute. Different animals have different colors of eyeshine. Many fish can exhibit white eyeshine. Some mammals such as horses exhibit blue eyeshine. Others like cats and dogs exhibit red eyeshine.” Glen frowned. He backed up to the search function and typed in a new question. 

‘Animals with green eyeshine’. He skimmed through the results, coming upon no animals with that color of eyeshine. He was about to give up in frustration when a small article to the bottom of the page caught his eye. It was about how to find different animals at night with nothing but a flashlight, and how to recognize what animal you were looking at. 

“Using a flashlight, you can easily find many nocturnal animals, though you must be behind the light as eyeshine is difficult to see if you aren’t in the right position. The simplest animal to find at night is a spider. Find a grassy area and stand about fifteen to twenty feet away. Sweep your light across the grass. If you see any bright points of green light, that’s your light reflecting off the eyes of a spider. Many have often described the eyeshine of a spider as eerie, but much brighter than one would expect.” Glen stared at the computer blinking at the results in front of him. That couldn’t be right.

 

Piper was panicking slightly when she made it back to her room. She had no idea why her hand had been glowing under the UV light. She slammed her door and shuddered for a moment. Then she took a deep breath and pulled up the file she’d stolen from Oscorp’s systems years ago when she was first bitten. She’d always felt kinda bad about taking the file but she justified it to herself by reminding herself that she was doing research that could potentially save her life. She skimmed the notes and found nothing about UV lights. She double checked that her door was closed and stepped over to the full length mirror next to her closet. 

“JARVIS, kill the lights in my room for me would you?” The AI did as she asked. For a moment she stood in complete darkness. Her windows only let in light when she wanted them to and no one could see in through any of the windows of Stark Tower. Despite his reputation Tony liked his private life to stay as private as possible. Piper took a deep breath. 

“Turn on the UV lights J.” She’d never asked her dad why he had lights of every spectrum throughout the tower. She’d never really cared and in the lab levels it made sense. The UV lights came up and Piper nearly screamed as she stared at herself in the mirror. Her skin was a soft purple glowing under the lights. Spirals of iridescent yellow were scattered across her skin. She blinked at her reflection. She pulled off her shirt and stared. Every inch of her skin was different, new patterns swirling in the purple. She looked down at her hands. Her fingernails were bright purple, no yellow there. The pads of her fingers were almost entirely yellow. It diffused down her palms back into the swirling untraceable pattern that littered the rest of her skin. She heard the door open behind her and whirled. Ava stood in the doorway blinking at her. 

“That’s different…” Piper pulled her shirt in front of herself and demanded JARVIS return the lights to normal. He did as she asked and the two girls stared at each other for a minute. Ava spoke first.

“So… I’m guessing that wasn’t body paint.” Piper shook her head. Ava tilted hers to the side. 

“Then why were you purple?” Piper bit her lip. 

“Well.” She couldn’t hold back she was freaking out. “Doctor Connors was showing Glen around some of the spaces in the lab and one of the scientists is studying spiders, like sleep cycles and stuff. Hell if I know why. But Doc Connors called me down to see it cause its actually really interesting stuff. Apparently some spiders are Bioluminescent under UV lighting. And then I looked down at my hand and it was purple and I think Glen saw it too but I’m not sure! Oh my god I’m a freak! I can’t ever go to night bowling!” Ava slapped a hand over Piper’s mouth. 

“First of all if you ever call yourself a freak again I’m gonna slap you. You aren’t a freak. So what, you’re different. I think it’s pretty badass. Second of all, night bowling, that’s where your mind went? Not clubs that use UV lights?” She removed her hand from her friends mouth. Piper blinked at her. 

“I’ve never been a club person.” Ava nodded conceding the point. 

“I’m pretty sure if you wanted to go night bowling your dad would find a way. Also who’s Glen?” Before Piper could answer their coms clicked to life. 

“We got a tipoff, there’s a gonna be a jewelry heist on a party boat! It just left dock. Suit up?” Piper nodded at the sound of Luke’s voice. 

“Yeah suit up. Tiger and I will meet you there.” The girls split up to change. Piper went to snag her costume from her lab and found a new one laying in its place. It had the same look up close as the fabric on her dress that was laced with metal. She pulled it on and took a second to admire the slight shimmer of the new suit before she popped open a window and leapt up the building to where she’d stashed her bike. White Tiger was waiting for her in a nearly indistinguishable costume to her original one, but Piper spotted the slight shimmer to the fabric that told her that her dad had upgrader her suit too. They hopped on the bike and took off across the city towards the river.


	7. The Call Of The Wild

Spidergirl flipped over Thundra. These four never really learned their lesson. Danny and Sam were handling crowd control. Ava had already cut Trapsters glue line, leaving him stuck to the deck of the yacht. Piper mused as she fought, perhaps not the best time for such thoughts but well she had always been good at multitasking. 

It had been about three months since the world had discovered Piper Parker was the daughter of Tony Stark, and her life had still managed to remain relatively quiet through a series of clever misdirection and Pepper being an absolute godsend. But she wasn’t going to be able to avoid the press forever. Soon she would have to at least give a statement. She made a mental note to talk to Eddie and see when MJ started at the Bugle. She had an idea. It didn’t take them long to take down the frightful four, they’d certainly had enough practice. It wasn’t until they were back on solid land that things got a bit weird. 

 

For the first ten minutes Piper was sure she was hearing things. As they patrolled around Queens a pounding drum beat seemed to follow them. She kept them moving but the beat never seemed to come to a stop. It made her twitchy. Something felt off about her mouth too, like she had something stuck between her top lip and her front teeth. She called a halt on a flat rooftop and pulled her mask up halfway, scrubbing at her lip. She swore, it was starting to hurt, but there was nothing there. Nothing she could find anyway. White Tiger stepped up to her. She looked like she was having problems standing still too. 

“Spidey, we should keep moving.” Piper held up her hand as a warm liquid filled her mouth and a sharp pain blasted through her head. She spat, blood coating the rocky rooftop. But there was something else there too, a nearly clear viscous liquid. Piper shook her head and spat again as the pain spiked again. 

Sam honestly wasn’t sure what was going on. One minute they’d been doing a normal patrol route, talking about how cool it was that they got to train with Hawkeye next week then Piper was calling them to a stop and clutching her head. When she started spitting blood he knew something was off and hit the call button Tony Stark had shown him in the cuff of his right sleeve. The others didn’t know it was there, that’s what Tony had said anyway. But if anything major went down he or at least one of his suits could be there in minutes. Sam glanced around them as Ava took a step back from the bloody puddle Spidey had managed to spit up. Then he heard a growl. He whirled searching for the threat. It wasn’t until Ava lunged at Piper that he realized the threat was standing right in front of them. 

Piper would admit that without her spidey sense she would be dead many times over. She’d long ago lost count though she wouldn’t put it past her father to have hacked every database that existed to find every misstep she’d made and keep a log of them. Not to hold over her, he would probably never even admit it would exist. But her spidey sense always warned her before anything life threatening could come within a foot of her. So when it told her to move she listened. It was a hard learned lesson but right now it saved her from having her throat torn open by a suddenly and illogically irate White Tiger. The pain in her head spiked one more time as she skittered backwards out of the Tigers reach. Then she felt the skin above her gums and at the back of her top lip split and two hard sharp, serrated somethings dropped down. Tiger lunged again, and Piper hissed. Fight or flight had kicked in, a white mist edging at her mind. 

Threat, but not an insurmountable one. Running was an option. Injured, slightly, already healing. No, don’t run fight. She leapt forwards meeting the threat. Grappling, trying to get at skin, to bite. Rolling, kicked off, skittering backwards, something wasn’t right but the mist made it so hard to think. Sounds echoing around her, the drums pounding in her ears. 

Luke raced forwards as Ava leapt at Piper again. Neither girl seemed to be able to hear them. Ava took a few swipes at him but she couldn’t break his skin. Danny was trying to talk Piper down but she hissed at him, skittering backwards up the metal strut of a water tower. Something was wrong with her mouth, Luke couldn’t make it out from where he stood trying to keep a grip on Ava. Sam hovered forwards. 

“Ok you do a mean impression of the girl from the Grudge, Spidey we get it. Chill.” Apparently that was the wrong thing to say. 

Sam would never admit that he screamed like a girl when she leapt at him like those videos of jumping spiders leaping at their prey. Luke would have laughed if Ava hadn’t gotten her feet under her and managed to slam back into him hard enough to force him to let go. Sam screamed again as a set of serrated curved fangs that he most certainly didn’t remember ever being in her mouth before sank into his shoulder. He managed to swat her off as the Nova Force began to heal him, but his suit was sizzling slightly where she’d bitten him. 

A loud sonic screech had Tiger howling and Spidey retreating to the space under the water tower, the white lenses of her mask reflecting just enough light that she was still visible. Iron Man landed on the roof, one hand pointed at Ava the other at the darkness under the water tower. Sam wiggled his fingers. The Nova Force was quick at healing, almost as fast as whatever had been on those fangs. The tips of his fingers were tingling. 

“Somebody want to explain what just happened?” Ava howled and raced forwards, low to the ground using her arms to launch her forwards faster, almost like she was running on all fours. A white web was becoming visible under the water tower, intricately woven. Then Ava wobbled and almost dropped to the roof. Danny raced forwards to steady her. Nova shone a light under the water tower and saw Piper sitting in the center of a half constructed web looking distinctly confused as to how she’d gotten there. 

“I think we would all love to know what just happened. I don’t recall you ever having that bad a bite Spidey.” Sam said ducking under the web as Piper lowered herself to the ground. 

“What are you talking about, what bite?” She was lisping slightly and her hands leapt to her mouth feeling along the front of her teeth. The part of her face he could see had gone as white as snow. She pulled a hand away from her mouth and spotted the blood there. She was silent for a moment.

“That’s not all mine is it?” Sam shook his head. Before he could say more she turned away from him and vomited onto the rocky roof. Tony stepped under the web.

“I think we need to get both of you girls back to Stark tower.” Piper nodded looking absolutely miserable. Ava didn’t look much better, she was slightly hunched in on herself on arm wrapped around her torso.


	8. Discoveries

Dr. Curt Connors wasn’t entirely surprised to be called up to Tony’s lab level of Stark Tower. Ever since the fall of SHEILD three months ago he had been working with the Avengers to sort through what was left of SHEILD, figuring out what had truly been SHEILD and what had been Hydra. The data mining had been mostly on Tony and JARVIS but Piper had been helping quite a bit too, as had Agents Coulson and Hill. Hill was still sorting through a few of the higher ups that had been Hydra in Washington but she would soon be headed back to Avengers Tower and Dr. Connors had every intention of introducing her to Piper when that happened. So the call up to the inventors main lab wasn’t all that surprising. But what he found was a bit shocking. 

Piper was sitting on one of the tables, her mask stubbornly pulled down, Ava was curled up in a chair, much like a distressed cat. The other teens were scattered around the room, Luke and Danny had changed into their civvies but Sam was still wearing his helmet though he’d switched to a t-shirt and shorts, which was an odd pairing against the glow that surrounded him. Tony was standing in front of his daughter trying to get her to pull up her mask. 

“Piper we can’t fix it if you don’t show me what’s wrong.” She shook her head not speaking. Dr. Connors cleared his throat. Tony turned to the door and sighed. 

“Doc Connors, great. Maybe you can get my daughter to cooperate.” Dr. Connors frowned and stepped forwards. 

“Piper what happened?” She shook her head, still refusing to remove her mask. Sam sighed and zipped across the room, close to the ceiling snatching off her mask as he passed. She squawked and both of her hands flew to her mouth. There were tears in her eyes. She didn’t look any different. Dr. Connors frowned as he stepped up next to her. He rested his arm against the table and looked her over. 

“I hate to say it but your father is right, we cant help if you don’t show us what’s wrong. Science can’t be built on guesses.” She blinked at him, then she rolled her eyes slightly at his words, a saying Bruce liked to use and slowly lowered her hands. At first he didn’t notice a difference. Her top lip looked a bit swollen, but it wasn’t red or irritated like she’d been punched. He pulled a glove out of a nearby box and with some difficulty pulled it on. She twitched like she wanted to stop him but he raised an eyebrow at her and she nodded. He reached forwards and using his pointer finger carefully lifted up her upper lip. Behind her lip but in front of her front teeth sat a pair of white serrated pincer like teeth that most certainly hadn’t been there before. There was a small amount of blood there but it didn’t seem to be hers and there was a tiny piece of skin still stuck to one of the serrated edges of the right pincer. 

“Tweezers please.” Danny found them first and handed them over while Tony grabbed a petri dish. Dr. Connors gently pulled the torn skin off the new formed tooth and set it in the dish. Piper wrinkled her nose and the pincers twitched slightly. 

“Tilt your head back for me Piper.” She did as she was asked and Dr. Connors frowned. “I need a light.” Tony snatched up a small light and shone it into his daughters mouth. “Thank you, point it at the tip of the tooth please.” Tony did as he was asked, his hand only shaking slightly as the light illuminated the tips of the fangs his daughter seemed to have spontaneously developed. Dr. Connors spotted what he was looking for immediately. There were two small holes at the tip of each wickedly sharp fang. He directed Tony to move the light so he could see further into her mouth the roof of which was slightly swollen. He frowned slightly and withdrew his hand from her mouth. 

“Piper I’d like to try something if you’re comfortable with it. I have a hunch but I’d need to test it to see if it’s true. I don’t believe it would hurt at all but first I need to know if you’re experiencing any pressure on the roof of your mouth.” She nodded. She still hadn’t spoken. He frowned. 

“Can you talk?” She nodded. “You just don’t want to?” She nodded again. He glanced at the other teens. Luke piped up.

“She might be embarrassed, she was lisping when she talked after they ummm came in.” He said glancing at Danny who nodded, his eyes were flicking over to Ava though who appeared to have fallen asleep on the chair. Dr. Connors turned back to Piper. 

“So pressure. Is there any pain at all?” She shook her head. He nodded and turned to Tony. 

“I’m gonna need an extra hand.” Tony nodded.

“Just tell me what you need Doc.” He nodded and pointed to a medium sized beaker on the table next to Luke. 

“That beaker, the one with the large mouth.” Tony nodded and grabbed the empty beaker. “Piper please tilt your head back one more time.” She did as she was told looking a bit nervous. “Mr. Stark if you’ll place the beaker here over the edge.” Tony raised an eyebrow but did as he was asked. “Now this may feel a little odd but if you could hold off biting down that would be preferable.” Piper made a noise that sounded almost like a laugh. Then Dr. Connors pressed down on the two small swollen patches of skin on the roof of her mouth. 

Piper was still freaking out but she only jumped a little as the doctor applied pressure to the roof of her mouth. She felt the new fangs twitch and then the pressure that had been sitting on the roof of her mouth was lessening and a nearly clear liquid was filling the beaker. Soon the pressure was all but gone and Dr. Connors removed his fingers from her mouth. Her dad pulled the now half full beaker away from her mouth staring at the liquid inside it. It would have been completely clear if it weren’t for the greenish tint that appeared when held up to the light. Tony blinked at it for a minute before speaking.

“What is that?” Sam helped Dr. Connors pull off his glove and threw it in the bio hazard trash. 

“Venom. Not the symbiote, but actual spider venom.” Piper’s eyes snapped over to him staring at him. He nodded understanding the disbelief in her eyes. “I am quite serious. It seems you’ve developed not only a set of chelicera, though just the fang portion which is probably a good thing, but a set of fully functional venom glands. I’d love to know how this happened. Were you exposed to something that you haven’t been exposed to before? Further radiation maybe or a severely stressful stimuli?” Piper shook her head. She took a deep breath and spoke. 

“No, today hasn’t been all that stressful, except for when I found out I glow in UV lights like a bioluminescent spider and the shit that happened on the rooftop, most of which I don’t remember.” They all glanced over at Ava who was still sound asleep. Piper shook her head. 

“All I remember is there was a drum beat following us around Queens, it got really loud then I got a really bad headache and these things showed up! Then everything went white.” Luke nodded. 

“Yeah and you and Ava went feral on each other.” Piper frowned. Dr. Connors nodded. 

“How extensively have you tested your mutation Piper?” She frowned as she hopped off the table. 

“Not all that extensively honestly. I… I figured out it was the spider after a conversation with Hank McCoy. He did some minor testing.” Tony frowned. 

“You went to the Xmen before you went to me!” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“I mutated overnight and you were in China, who was I supposed to go to?” Tony nodded. Dr. Connors took the beaker from Tony swirling to contents slightly. 

“I may see if I can get in contact with Dr. McCoy, to see if we can figure out what’s happening to you. For now I’d go about business as usual.” Piper frowned. 

“And how am I supposed to do that with fucking fangs!” A voice piped up from the doorway. 

“Language Piper.” Pepper stepped into the room. Piper rolled her eyes and stuck out her tongue at the redhead. But her tongue didn’t catch on the fangs, instead they seemed to fold out of the way, up into the gums. Piper blinked and grabbed a nearby Stark Pad. Leaving the piece of tech in sleep mode she checked out her reflection in the black surface. She smiled at herself and blinked the fangs were gone. She sighed. 

“Well that seemed to fix itself.” Dr. Connors had her open her mouth again as Tony handed the light to Danny who shone it into his friends mouth for the doctor as Pepper spoke to Tony about a meeting he had to be at soon. Dr. Connors frowned. 

“They aren’t gone, it seems like they’re retractable. It’s possible they’ve been there since you were bitten, and some stimuli forced their appearance today. You should see if you can’t figure out what happened on that rooftop. I’ll see if I can’t get in touch with Dr. McCoy and maybe we can figure out what happened and what triggers it, maybe see if we can’t find someone who can help you learn to use it properly without the guesswork.” Piper nodded and corked the beaker of venom handing it to Dr. Connors. 

“Maybe see if you can’t find out exactly how deadly that is. I think I bit Sam.” Sam shook his head. 

“You’re not the only one with speed healing web for brains, why do you think I left the helmet on?” Piper rolled her eyes but a smile pulled at her lips, she was glad Sam was going to be ok. Pepper stepped forwards. 

“Well I’m glad that seems to be settled, lunch is waiting upstairs. I suggest you all stop up there before you work on this anymore. If you’d like you can stop by and grab something too Dr. Connors we always have plenty of food.” Dr. Connors nodded slightly and smiled. 

“Thank you Miss Potts but I actually have plans to eat with my Interns today.” With that he headed off back to his level, the beaker of venom in his hand. Piper glanced over at Ava who was still asleep as the others began to head out. Danny shook his head. 

“Let her sleep Spider, she’ll be fine.” Piper nodded and the rest of the team headed up to the family level. None of them looked back and saw Ava kneading at the seat of the chair she was curled in, claws shredding leather.


	9. Overheard

Lunch at Stark Tower was never really a quiet affair, especially not since Piper’s team moved in. Sam was making what he called SamCakes, trying to teach the others as Luke fixed himself a smoothie to go with his lunch and Danny dressed his salad. Piper was sitting on the ceiling munching on her third sandwich. Pepper always made sure that there was enough food, either made or ready to make to, feed an army. Having so many people with faster than average metabolism under one roof required a lot of food. Piper snagged one of the finished SamCakes with a well placed webline and smirked at the boy as he glared at her. He shook his head. 

“Why are you always on the ceiling?” Piper shrugged. 

“It just feels right. Like you know how some people wander when they’re on the phone or always put their feet up? It’s kinda like that.” Sam rolled his eyes. Danny nodded. 

“It makes sense.” Piper raised an eyebrow at her friend. He nodded as he sat down at the table below her. 

“You are in touch with your powers, with your animal side.” Piper stared at him. He kept talking. 

“There are many types of beliefs around the world that every human has an animal spirit as well. In some it can manifest. Others are chosen by animals or fate to bear a resemblance to theirs. You are very in touch with your Spider side, you trust your spider sense implicitly, you even developed a way to be more similar to the spider.” Danny said gesturing at her wrists. She was wearing her old webshooters, the ones that looked like bracelets. Piper shrugged and bit into the SamCake. It was actually pretty good. 

“Does that mean that Ava’s is a tiger?” Danny nodded. “So can you like see spirit animals or whatever?” He shook his head. 

“I have a keen sense of the mystic but it is said that only the holder of the spirit animal can see them and even then only their own.” Piper shrugged. 

“Cool.” She snagged another sandwich as she finished off her stolen SamCake. The door to the kitchen opened and they all glanced over to it and froze. Ava stood in the door. Her hair was an absolute wreck. She stretched like a cat and Piper winced as her back cracked. Ava didn’t seem to care. She stepped over to the fridge and pulled out a gallon of milk. She twisted the top off and chugged the whole thing as the others blinked at her. She belched loudly and dropped the empty gallon into the nearby trashcan. The others blinked at her. She stepped over to the kitchen island which was neatly arranged, stacked high with food. She snagged a few chicken fingers, stuffing one into her mouth, not bothering with a plate. She scratched her head and walked out of the room without a word. The team all stared at each other for a minute. Piper was the first to speak up.

“What the fuck?”

 

Glen frowned at the sample Dr. Connors handed him. It was a clear viscous liquid in a small vial. A set of six sat on the table in front of him. He raised an eyebrow at the doctor as Abe stuck the slide he’d been given under the microscope. 

“Um. Doctor Connors can I maybe know I’m working on this, instead of the gene therapy, like Abe.” Dr. Connors nodded. 

“That is an excellent question Glen, but you can’t tell anyone the answer.” Glen perked up. “This is a favor for Mr. Stark. The Avengers have run across a… creature that produces this venom and would like to know what it does. Dr. Banner is in Italy at the moment with Mr. Barton and Mr. Odinson so we’re their best bet. You’re tests show you’re more adept at identifying toxins than Abe. As soon as you’re done you can jump back on our main project.” Glen raised an eyebrow. 

“Is it life and death?” Dr. Connors shook his head. 

“No. The … creature isn’t a threat, but they want to be safe.” Glen nodded and turned back to his work. It was an interesting venom. Several tests later showed that it wasn’t deadly, but paralytic. Small doses of the venom would render the victim numb, large doses would cause immobility for at least a few hours. But there was something else. The venom seemed to have been treated with radiation. There wasn’t enough there to be a problem, it was harmless really but it was odd. Glen brought his findings to the doctor and waited while he spoke on the phone. 

“Yes Dr. McCoy. That would be lovely. Tomorrow? Excellent. Thank you. I’ll meet you there. I’ll see if I can’t talk her into coming too. Thank you Dr. McCoy. Goodbye.” Dr. Connors hung up his phone and slipped it back into his pocket before turning to Glen. He smiled. 

“That was quick.” Glen smiled, he’d always been good with bio chemistry, he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t. He handed over his notes and the doctor looked them over. 

“Fascinating stuff. This is excellent Glen. Would you mind if I share my discoveries with a few others?” Glen shook his head. Dr. Connors smiled at him. 

“Thank you. You have quite a lot of potential Mr. Stacy.” Glen beamed. The door to the lab opened and Piper Parker stuck her head in. She glanced around and spotted Dr. Connors. She slipped in, hurriedly pulling on a lab coat over her jeans and t-shirt. Glen couldn’t help but grin at the shirt. It was bright blue with a cartoon bowl of salad on it and the white words ‘Lettuce, the taste of sadness’ printed around it. She grinned at him as she stepped up to them. Dr. Connors smiled at her. 

“Miss Parker! I was just about to call you actually. Our mutual associate has agreed to a meeting and was wondering if you’d like to join us. We’re meeting at his… house tomorrow around nine.” Piper nodded. 

“Sounds great, have you seen Dad or Uncle Rhodey? I need to get into a file.” Dr. Connors shook his head. 

“Not since Mr. Stark called me up to the lab.” Piper frowned and nodded. 

“Thanks anyway.” She made to turn away then paused. “Actually maybe you can help me.” She grabbed an empty chair and pulled up a screen Glen had never seen before on one of the computers. Her fingers flew across the keys and in minutes a locked screen blocked her. Glen could just see the faint outline of the SHEILD logo over her shoulder. He frowned. Dr. Connors leaned closer to Piper, obscuring the screen for a moment as his hand flew across the keys. Piper nodded and thanked him. Glen stepped to the side as Piper pooled the files into one and transferred them to her server. He caught a glimpse of what looked like White Tiger’s mask before the screen returned to normal. Piper stood back up and nodded to the Dr. He smiled and held out the sheaf of paper Glen had given him to her. She took it and skimmed the contents. When she was done she looked almost relieved. She grinned at Dr. Connors. 

“Thanks Doc.” He shook his head.

“Don’t thank me. Glen did the work on this one. Abe’s working with the gene therapy. I’m putting Glen back on it too since he’s finished with this.” Piper raised an eyebrow at Glen, looking impressed. 

“That’s pretty brilliant Glen. Good job.” Piper took the papers with her as she left the lab level. Glen frowned after her. She seemed to have more to do with this little side project than Glen had guessed. He pushed the thought aside for the moment as Abe called him over to look over his math, Dr. Connors had impressed upon them that they should always double check themselves and have someone else look over their work just to be sure.


	10. Need To Know

Piper sent the boys out after Ava who’d apparently gone AWOL, almost feral. The main lab was a mess, beakers that had been too close to the edge of tables smashed on the floor spilling her new web formula everywhere. Any soft surface was torn to shreds. Long claw marks were dug into the walls. Piper had to figure out why Ava was doing this, the normally cool and controlled girl having gone completely wild didn’t sit well. With a little help from Doc Connors she’d cracked into Fury’s personal files for the team, one of the few pieces of information Natasha had dumped into Stark Servers instead of directly online. There was a reason Piper liked her best. She sat down at her desk in her lab and pulled up the White Tiger file. A holographic image of Nick Fury appeared on the other side of the desk. Piper frowned. It was odd seeing someone she knew to be dead sitting across from her. He shook his head slightly and Piper glanced down at the screen in front of her to make sure this was a recording, just in case. 

‘Personal log, Director Fury, subject, White Tiger, day seven. One week, I have had two teens on the premises for a full week now. Luke seems to be taking to the presence of someone his age well. We recruited Ava Ayala when Agent Coulson found her during an op in Puerto Rico. She holds the mystical amulet of the White Tiger, which endows the user with an immense amount of power, strength and speed. Wielding the amulet takes an immense amount of personal control. It was passed down to her by her father, who received it from his father before him.’ Fury sighed running a hand through his short hair. 

‘There has been some debate as to whether or not she should keep the amulet, both due to her age and the power held within being too much for one person. I believe she can handle it. Her father taught her how to discipline herself. I’ve never met someone as in control of herself as this fourteen year old girl.’ Piper paused the video, drumming her hands on the table. This had been from two years ago. Well before the team had officially been let loose on the world. She checked the date stamp on the file and did a quick bout of math. It was about a week after this that she officially stepped out as Spidergirl for the first time. She shook herself. She didn’t like thinking about her first escapade as a hero and how much she’d almost screwed up. She hit play again.

‘I will say this, if the tiger ever gets to be too much for Miss Ayala, I don’t know who would be able to stop her. End log.’ Piper frowned, what if the power had gotten to be too much? The lure of the wild, the call to be something other than human was something she was somewhat familiar with. There were days, frequently lately, where all she wanted to do was curl up in a web and stay there until something forced her to move. She ran her tongue along her front teeth, feeling some of the skin peel back slightly, the pincers descended and she frowned running a finger along them. They were sharp, she hissed slightly as she caught her finger on the serrated edge. She sighed and pulled off her top, grabbing her mask out of her pocket as she changed. 

 

Lunch in the Stark Tower Cafeteria was different, more like eating in a fancy restaurant than any cafeteria Glen was used to, complete with waiters and menus. They were running late to lunch, it was nearly five in the afternoon. Dr. Connors insisted on feeding them before sending them home though. He smiled at them as the waiter took their order and bowed out walking back towards the kitchen. Glen would have felt out of place if it wasn’t for the four other tables of people in lab coats and jeans. 

“So how are you two settling in to the lab?” Abe smiled wide at the doctor. 

“It’s a bit of culture shock but it’s worth it!” Glen nodded. Dr. Connors smiled slightly. Abe glanced around and leaned forwards. “I do have a question though.” Dr. Connors nodded. 

“Ask away, I’m here to teach.” Glen smiled, sipping his Pepsi. 

“Is it true you worked for SHEILD?” Glen blinked at his fellow intern as Dr. Connors face fell. Abe continued. “I mean SHEILD got spilled onto the internet right, the Black Widow did that when she, Captain America, and the Falcon took it down. Well I mean it included names of scientists, and your name was there.” Dr. Connors cleared his throat as Glen set down him drink. 

“Yes. I did work for SHEILD. None of us knew that Hydra was there, we…” Abe interrupted him, still looking excited.

“So you got to work with Spidergirl?” Dr. Connors blinked at him for a moment and remained silent as the waiter returned with their food. Once he had left again Dr. Connors collected himself and nodded. 

“Yes, I did work with Spidergirl and her team.” Glen tilted his head, interested. He had a hunch but not enough solid evidence to back it up. Hunches weren’t the building blocks of science though, they could certainly lead to discoveries, but they could also lead to disaster if not handled well. So he bit into his sandwich instead of speaking as Abe snagged one of his fries and grinned at the doctor.

“What’s she like?” Dr. Connors frowned as he wound his fork in his spaghetti. Abe kept pushing as the doctor took a bite. “I know you won’t tell us who she is, if you even know, but she’s literally the coolest superhero.” Dr. Connors smiled slightly as he set down his fork. 

“I did work with her and her team a few times but never closely.” Glen frowned as Dr. Connors rubbed his shoulder. He did that a lot when he talked about certain things, things he wasn’t sure about or things he was flat out lying about. He didn’t do it often but enough that Glen had caught on, his dad had taught him how to recognize certain ticks in people. Abe however looked disappointed.

“So, no chance of her autograph?” Glen snorted, and Dr. Connors smiled, he was still rubbing his shoulder though. 

“Probably not, truth be told I haven’t seen her since SHEILD fell.” Abe went back to his food looking a bit down. They were silent for a few minutes but then Abe perked back up looking up at Glen. 

“How about you Glen? Your dad’s police chief right? He’s gotta have worked with Spidergirl before, right?” Glen shook his head. 

“Nope.” Abe stared at him and Glen sighed. “My dad is the chief of police. But technically Spidergirl is a vigilante. He can’t be seen being complicit in anything she does, since to the letter of the law at least, she’s a criminal, her and her team.” Dr. Connors frowned. Abe looked almost offended. Glen raised his hands in surrender. 

“I’m not saying the letter of that law in particular is right, neither does dad honestly. But times are changing, who knows. Maybe the government will officially recognize her team like they did with the Avengers. The media is already calling them the Ultimates, so it could be, but I don’t know. I think she’s pretty cool though.” Abe grinned and went back to his food. Dr. Connors took another bit of his as well before smiling. 

“Maybe they’ll become members of the Avengers.” Glen tilted his head at the doctor, conceding the point as Abe began to talk about how cool that would be. 

 

Luke figured they were in trouble when Nova dropped to the roof, snoring a dart sticking out of his back. It would take a tranquilizer that could kill a bull elephant to knock him down. Danny whirled batting aside several darts aimed his way before a smoke bomb went off near his feet. Luke heard him hit the roof but couldn’t see it. He circled and lunged as he spotted a large figure in the clearing smoke. It was tall, at least six feet and built like a brick wall. 

“Gonna take more than a dart to take me down!” Then something was blown in his face and he coughed and staggered, gagging before keeling over, landing hard on the roof. The last thing he saw was a tall tan skinned man with bright eyes dressed in well cared for animal skins with a white fur collar around the edge of his vest, like the mane on a lion. 

“I know.” He smiled a sharp toothed grin and Luke’s world spun before going black.


	11. A Chance Encounter

Spidergirl wasn’t worried, Spidergirl didn’t get worried. Piper on the other hand was close to panicking. None of the boys were answering their coms, Ava had ditched hers in Little Italy, it was now safely tucked in Piper’s belt. But Spidergirl didn’t show worry. So instead she swung up to the side of a building and stuck there. She tapped her watch and a holographic screen popped up. She frowned as it displayed a mini 3D map of New York. Three red dots were sitting in Central Park, in the lake near the Loeb Boathouse. Piper frowned. The sun was starting to set as she made her way back across New York. She landed on one of the building that lined the street that surrounded Central Park. She glanced back at her watch. The dots hadn’t moved. She sighed. 

“Why do I get the feeling you guys aren’t there for the paddle boats.” She swung across the street, a red and blue blur disappearing into the trees. 

 

Glen didn’t like leaving late, he missed his bus again and this time Piper wasn’t around to save his ass. He was going to end up grounded. So, he decided to take a shortcut through Central Park. He entered at the statue of William Tecumseh Sherman and began his trek down East Drive. He pulled out his phone to text his father and let him know he was going to be late. He glanced up as he heard something shift in a tree above him and shouted as he spotted a pair of yellow eyes right before a white blur lunged at him. It was intercepted by a red and blue one. In the dimming light of the setting sun Glen spotted Spidergirl squaring up against a disheveled looking White Tiger. The arachnid themed hero shouted over her shoulder as she blocked a swipe from the cat.

“Run Glen!” He took off down the path. It wasn’t until he was safely out of the Park and dialing his dad that he caught what she’d said. How did Spidergirl know his name, unless… Unless he was right. He hung up before his dad could answer and glanced back over his shoulder. 

 

“Ava you have to listen to me! I know what you’re going through!” Ava took another swipe. Piper flipped backwards. “Listen to me for a minute damn it!” Piper shot two lines of webbing sticking Ava’s hands together. She landed in front of her friend. 

“Can I talk now? Cause I’m going to. I know how hard it can be to control yourself. You know I know, you’ve seen how hard I work at it at school and anywhere that isn’t home. I’m always on the walls and ceiling at home but maybe we need to find you a better outlet than trying to slit up your friends.” Ava managed to extricate her hands from the webbing but didn’t swing at Piper again so she called it a win. 

“You have no idea what I go through trying to keep the tiger in check. How hard I’ve had to work at it.” Piper nodded her hands raised in surrender.

“Maybe I don’t. But Ava you’re my friend. You never let me face things like this alone, not even after I ditched the team to try and take the Goblin on myself. Let me help you like you helped me.” Ava brushed the remainder of the webbing off on a nearby tree. 

“You can’t get involved in this, none of you.” Piper frowned. 

“So, you don’t know where the boys are?” Ava stiffened. 

“What do you mean?” Piper pulled up the map.

“I sent them after you while I took care of something in the lab, I was snooping into Fury’s files on the team to see if I could figure out what was wrong. They’re here in Central Park but they aren’t answering coms, or moving from one spot. So, we’re in this whether you like it or not. So maybe let me in on what ‘this’ is.” Ava growled and took off towards the Boathouse, Piper hot on her heels. 

They arrived in minutes and Piper spotted the boys first. They were all tied up, slumped on top of each other like they’d been carelessly thrown into the boat. They were snoring. Ava hissed as she stepped forwards onto the dock. 

“I hate water.” Piper frowned. She opened her mouth to say something when her spidey sense went nuts. She lunged forwards shoving herself and White Tiger to the edge of the dock as Tiger’s foot caught the edge of a camouflaged trap. Red beams of light shot out of the trap and rabidly disappeared a hissing sound following them, one Piper associated with high intensity lasers. Someone had set that trap to kill, not capture. Both girls whirled as laughter filled the empty docks. 

“At least one member of your pack has the survival instinct, unlike yourself.” The man was tall, tanned, his hair slicked back. He was built and clearly proud of it, his arms bare. Fingerless leather gloves rested on his hands. His clothes were soft leather and what looked like animal skins. What had to be a lions mane rested around the collar of his vest. The whole outfit gave off a high tech poacher vibe to Piper and she didn’t like it. He grinned at Ava, his canines had been sharpened to a point. “Drawn to the call of the Wild like a moth to a flame.” He appraised Spidergirl and Ava growled, stepping between them. He kept talking. “Though she reacted quite interestingly to the Song of the Savanah Drum.” 

“Kraven!” Piper glanced between the two. Ava was practically vibrating with her growls. Kraven gestured to the boat full of teen heroes. 

“Though you might make interesting prey someday Spider, I am not here to hunt you. Take your companions and go.” Spidey shook her head. 

“Not likely.” Kraven laughed and Ava snarled. 

“You hunted my father like an animal! I’ll kill you for what you did to him!” She lunged at Kraven as Piper dodged one of the knives thrown by the hunter. She landed in the boat. No more sharp implements were flying her way for now so she took a second to check on the boys. She scanned them with her watch as she pulled them off of each other, sitting them up around the small boat. They were alive, just sedated. She glanced back up at the fight raging on between the Tiger and the hunter. She nodded to herself and flipped out of the boat.


	12. The Eye Of The Tiger

Piper leapt up the wall behind Kraven as he lashed out at Ava with a set of red laser knives. She had to give it to him he kept up with technology but he wasn’t the only one. She pulled a small device, shaped like a spider from her belt and threw it at him. It landed on his main and she twiddled her fingers over the interface on her watch, scrolling through the functions until she found the one she wanted. She grinned under her mask. 

“You and your spider friend were able to resist the magic song of the Savanah Drum for longer than either of the White Tigers before you but otherwise I’m not impressed. Your father would be disappointed.” He glanced back at the boat full of sleeping teens, smiling to see that the girl in red and blue wasn’t there. “He would never have taken the bait so easily. He was crafty.” Ava growled loudly. 

“Don’t you dare talk about him!” She lunged and Kraven pulled a new knife behind his back and Piper hit the button on her screen. A light pulsed over Kraven and the laser flickered out as he swung it at Ava. It was his turn to growl. He glanced up. 

“Tiger is plenty crafty, but she’s not the only one.” Piper said waving from her spot on the wall. Ava swiped at Kraven as he dodged backwards and pulled out a small baton, clicking a button on it. The baton extended but nothing sprung up on the edge. Kraven growled again swinging the staff at White Tiger forcing her back. Spidey swung over to her. 

“What have you done insect!” Piper waggled a finger at him. 

“First off any decent hunter would know that a spider isn’t an insect. Spiders are arachnids, this is like middle school stuff there Scruffy.” She dove out of the way summersaulting to her feet as he snarled. “Second of all that was a localized EMP, I made them myself. I have way too many tech villains to deal with not to have developed something to deal with them, at least partially.” He pulled a bowie knife from his belt and swung it at her forcing her back onto the grass around the lake. He tumbled back out of the way of Ava as she roared and landed between Spidey and Kraven. 

“Last warning Spidey, he’s mine.” Piper rolled her eyes under her mask. 

“And I’m telling you for the last time, get down!” Piper tackled Ava, both girls rolling to their feet and running as another grenade was hurled their way. They kept running as Piper cursed the lack of buildings to web onto, that would be an easy way to get away from this psycho but he didn’t seem to care about property damage he likely wouldn’t care about civilian lives so leaving the mostly empty park would be a bad decision. 

“We need a plan, some king of strategy.” She whirled and shot a web at Kraven striking one of the grenades on his belt. The extra weight of the webbing pulled the body of the grenade off the pin and it fell. Kraven dove to the side, away from the girls as the grenade exploded in a flash of bright light and sound at his feet. Taking advantage of the hunter’s momentary distraction Piper grabbed Ava by the hand and pulled her into the trees and through them quickly, dragging her under a bridge and up the underside of it into the shadows. She slapped a hand over her friends mouth as she began to growl as Kraven crossed the bridge, rubbing his eyes slightly. 

“Let me at him!” Piper held Ava back. 

“No that’s what he wants! He wants you to fight him blind, animalistic, he doesn’t want you to think because he knows he won’t win if you do.” Ava flipped to the path below them. She huffed a breath. 

“You don’t understand.” Piper nodded. 

“Yeah the girl who’s lost literally every blood relative she’s ever had doesn’t understand loss and anger.” White Tiger stared down at her feet so Piper continued. “I get it, my uncle got taken from me too. And loss is different for everyone, I get that too. So help me understand yours, help me help you.” Ava paused and finally nodded. 

“Kraven steals weapons and tribal magic from around the world to become the worlds greatest hunter, he’s no slouch at technology either. Not at your level but no slouch. That stupid magic drum was what affected us on the roof, made us both go full animal. But all of that is nothing compared to the power in this.” She tapped the amulet at her side. Piper nodded. 

“It was your dads right, Fury had that in his file.” Ava nodded. 

“It was, and my grandfathers before him. They were both hunted by Kraven in their time. I was there that night. When he hunted my father. My dad got away, but he was hurt, the kind that doesn’t get better. So he entrusted the amulet to me. Now it’s my job to protect it, to keep the tiger side calm. But I don’t want to be calm anymore. I want to be the Tiger, I want revenge. You wouldn’t understand that feeling, you’re too… well adjusted.” Ava leapt off and Piper blinked as memories of her first trip out as Spidergirl flashed through her mind. 

“I understand better than you know.” She leapt after her friend. She followed her at a distance. She knew that Ava didn’t want her help, would probably try to slap her around but she wasn’t thinking straight. Piper couldn’t help but think that the drum had affected her friend worse than it had affected her. Probably because Ava didn’t let loose her animal side as much as Piper did. She flipped to the top of the reptile house as Ava flipped over a bush slashing at air behind a crossbow. Piper missed what happened next as her spidey sense went crazy and she leapt to avoid a volley of arrows from another set of hidden crossbows. She did hear Kraven though as she rolled and ducked. 

“Your friend needs to work on her little toys, they don’t last very long.” Piper grumbled.

“You try miniaturizing an EMP into the shape of a spider, it’s trial and error dude.” She knew Kraven couldn’t hear her though. He was still talking to Ava, taunting her. 

“You’re so afraid to unleash the power of the amulet. You’re even weaker than your father was, weaker than you grandfather.” She heard Ava shout and grunt as she sprang onto another roof. This one didn’t seem to be booby trapped. “They would be so ashamed of what you’ve become.” Ava roared like a feral beast and lunged at Kraven as Piper called for her to stop. She didn’t listen and Kraven sidestepped her easily swinging his now active spear at her as she passed him. Her belt, amulet and all fell to the grass. Kraven grinned and pressed a button on his belt. Ava screamed as the ground underneath her gave way and Piper fired a webline at her friend yanking hard. Ava stopped inches from the spikes in the pit and Piper pulled hard, yanking her friend to the roof beside her. She helped her to her feet and noticed that she looked normal again. Her hair wasn’t as wild and she wasn’t radiating rage anymore like she had been all day. 

“No kitty kebab for you Kraven!” The hunter ignored her as he knelt and grabbed Ava’s belt. Ava stumbled slightly on the rooftop and Piper steadied her friend. She was shaking, and it took Piper a second to realize that her friend was crying. 

“Come on, we’re not done here, we can still beat him.” Ava batted her hand away. 

“No. It’s too late. My powers are gone and…” Piper grabbed Ava and shoved her out of the way as a clawed hand swung out of nowhere, narrowly missing Ava. It did catch the edge of Piper’s mask, shredding the fabric over her mouth and drawing blood from her chin. She landed, Ava in her arms and turned to see Kraven standing triumphant on the rooftop, his eyes glowing a bright electric green, matching the amulet that now sat on a necklace of fangs around his neck. 

“And now the Tiger is free.”


	13. Taking Advantage

Piper flipped, Ava still in her arms, as Kraven lunged at them. He was laughing, but Piper couldn’t help but think it sounded more like a purr than anything human. His canine teeth had lengthened to sharp points that sat on his bottom lip as she smiled and growled. 

“Foolish child, you truly believed you deserve this power!” He took another swipe at them and Piper webbed them away, out of the Central Park Zoo and into the trees that surrounded it. She panted and swiped at her chin. It seemed to be scabbing over already so it hadn’t been a deep cut. They landed in the trees and Piper ducked letting go of Ava, dodging three darts thrown her way by a smirking, snarling Kraven. Despite having lost her powers Ava didn’t see to have much trouble leaping through the trees so Piper ignored her for a moment as Kraven slashed at her. She flipped over the hunter, his fingernails had lengthened into actual claws. He roared and laughed. 

“This is power! This is nature unleashed! It would be a shame not to use this power on a hunt! Even on such meager prey!” Piper flashed him a snarl of her own as the pincers slipped into place in front of her teeth. 

“I think you’ll find there’s a reason people are scared of spiders.” She slid under him and knocked his feet out from under him with a well placed web. She kicked him backwards into the trunk of the tree, webbing both of his arms to the tree. She was about to snatch back Ava’s amulet when a blast of power from the amulet sent her flying into another tree. She shook herself as Ava landed next to her. Kraven laughed. 

“Your family could have ruled for generations! If only you…” But he got no further as the light from the amulet grew brighter and he began to scream. Piper shaded her eyes and glanced at Ava as a loud growl shook Central Park. Ava was staring at the now thrashing Kraven. Piper thought for a split second before snagging her friend around the waist and pulling her away from the roaring man. His skin was shifting, the color draining as hair began to spring up and he shredded his vest. Piper pulled Ava back towards the zoo. 

“Look Ava I know you’re messed up right now but I never studied Mystical Tiger Mojo. I need your help.” Ava huffed and pulled up her mask. Her face was covered in tears, and more were welling in her eyes. 

“I can’t help against that! He’s gone full animal, the man is gone, he’s just the Tiger now. And I’m nothing without the amulet!” Piper shook her head grabbing Ava by the shoulder as she tried to curl up on herself. 

“Hey! I realize now that I don’t know you as well as I probably should but I know that you’re not nothing. It took strength and courage to take up the amulet, to carry on your dads legacy, to keep the tiger in check all those years. Honestly that probably makes you one of the strongest people I’ve ever met, and think about that for a minute.” Ava glanced up at her. “Amulet or not you’re still you. And you always have a plan, but it really needs to be a good one this time.” Ava nodded swiping at her eyes. 

“Guess you know me better than I thought you did.” Piper smiled her pincers on full display, due to her shredded mask. Ava got a look in her eyes, then she pulled her mask back down and glanced around them spotting the small tiger enclosure. 

“You got an idea?” Ava nodded. 

“Yeah but you’re not gonna like it. We need to take advantage of your… new skill.” Piper placed a hand over her mouth for a second then she nodded. Ava glanced down at the small open topped enclosure again and smiled slightly as a roar sounded behind them. Kraven landed on a branch near them. He had gone full animal alright, an upright leaping white tiger with bright green eyes and mostly shredded clothing roared at them again. Piper grabbed her around the waist and they swung out over the enclosure. 

“Roll before you hit the ground!” Piper called out, and that was all the warning Ava got before she was tossed into a souvenir stand just outside the enclosure. Kraven leapt at Spidergirl wrapping her in both of his arms. She took advantage of this though and sunk her teeth into his bicep. She tasted fur and blood as the minor pressure on the roof of her mouth released and Kraven howled dropping her. He landed in a small pool in the enclosure. Piper landed across the enclosure and immediately spit hard trying to rid her mouth of fur and blood. The taste made her gag but she had other things to worry about right now as Kraven made to leap out of the enclosure after Ava. She sent a web at his back, successfully catching his attention. 

“Hey the playpen is for party animals like us Kraven.” The man tiger roared at her and lunged but he was moving slower than he had been as he swiped at her. She’d had no idea how her venom would affect an enhanced like this. Then again she didn’t know if Ava had a healing factor at all. She wondered at that as she ducked under Kraven’s arm and delivered a punishing blow to his side. He stumbled back and she heard a growl but it didn’t come from Kraven who was shaking his head and stumbling slightly. The fingers on his right hand, the arm she’d bitten, weren’t moving at all. 

“Tiger ventriloquism, nifty!” She whirled and spotted two white Bengal Tigers bearing down on her from the rock above her. She swore under her breath. She was trapped between three very hungry tigers with no way out that she could see. A rock flew past her ear and struck Kraven between the eyes. 

“You don’t wanna eat Spiders Kraven, they give you cavities.” Kraven roared and leapt over Piper and the two natural tigers towards Ava. Piper flipped after him, landing on his back, slapping a cartridge of web fluid to him. 

“Are you calling me sweet?” She winked at Ava as she leapt off and pressed a button on her watch remotely activating the cartridge on Kraven’s back. It exploded wrapping the man tiger in webs. He howled as his knees locked, the venom spreading through his system. 

“This one’s all you Tiger.” Piper said landing on the logs across the enclosure, trying to stay out of the way of the actual tigers who seemed to have taken an interest in this new, bloodstained thing that was leaping around their enclosure. Out of the corner of her eyes she spotted Ava swipe the amulet back from Kraven who roared, but this time it shrunk into a scream as he dropped to the ground. Piper breathed a sigh of relief and turned her attention to the animals in front of her that were still stalking closer. She really didn’t want to hurt them, they were rare and beautiful, just acting on instinct. But a whistle across the enclosure had them turning and trotting over to Ava like trained kittens. Piper let herself relax slightly as Kraven stirred slightly.

“So much power… How..?” Ava finished his thought for him as she stepped forwards, towering over the downed man. 

“Do I control it? My father taught me, as his father taught him. But they also taught me how to cut loose.” She growled as she stepped forwards and Piper felt all her excitement at winning the fight drain away.


	14. Defining Choices

Piper landed between Kraven and Ava her hands held up.

“This was not part of the plan Tiger. We got him, he’s down, lets call for a pickup.” Ava shook her head, glaring over Piper’s shoulder. Kraven spoke up from where he was laid on the ground behind Spidergirl.

“I was wrong, you are so much more than your father, and you could be more, so much more, if you let go.” Piper whirled on him.

“I’m pretty sure I hate you, shut your face.” She slapped a web over Kraven’s mouth and turned back to her friend. 

“What are we doing here Tiger?” Ava took a step forwards and Piper matched her, keeping herself between Ava and their helpless opponent. 

“I’m going to finish it, finish him. He took my father from me! Forever! You… you don’t know what it’s like facing down the man who killed your only family.” She made to shove Piper aside, but the brunette held fast. 

“I do though. I’ve been exactly where you are right now. Face to face with the man who took everything from me. And the thing was he didn’t do it for a magical amulet, or a grudge match or revenge, he did it for a car. And I was right where you are, I had him pinned against a wall completely helpless. I was ready to rip him to shreds.” Ava had frozen, if Piper could see beyond her mask she would have seen shock on her friend’s face. Even after fight together for nearly nine months Ava had never seen Piper lose her cool, not really. The closest she’d come was against the Goblin, but even then she’d refused to use deadly force. 

“But I realized something as he was begging for his life, if I did that, if I killed him. I would be the same as him. Someone I always cared about used to tell me that we have a choice in this world, that we can choose what kind of person we will be. I chose to walk away, to be better than him. To be Spidergirl.” Ava glanced down at the amulet in her hands. “That amulet doesn’t define who you are, you do, your choices do. And now’s the time to make that choice. You can be like Kraven, a hunter, or you can be like your father, a hero.” Ava’s claws retracted and she turned away from the downed hunter. 

“I guess you know me better than I thought.” Piper smiled to herself as she hit the call button for the FBI agents that had been stationed in New York since SHEILD fell. She made sure to string Kraven up in a tree to keep him away from the Tigers and she and Ava leapt their way out of the Zoo. Piper stopped in one of the trees to watch the FBI agents drag Kraven to the car. Ava landed next to her. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Piper sighed pulling off her ruined mask as she did. 

“I’ve never told anyone about the first night I went out as Spidergirl.” Ava nodded getting ready to stand, if Piper didn’t want to talk about it then she wouldn’t push but the brunette didn’t stop talking.

“It was a few days after the Mandarin blew up the Malibu house. I was there you know, got stuck in the armory, managed to use one of the suits to dig my way out. But JARVIS wouldn’t let me go after dad and Pepper had gone missing, so I did the only thing I could think of, I went back to New York and busted out my costume for the first time. I had been planning it for a few weeks, ever since I got bit.” She swiped a hand across her face and sighed. 

“You know they found out the name of the guy who killed my Uncle a month after he died. But they still hadn’t caught him, two years later. His name is Mathew Hardy, he was a cat burglar. He’d upgraded to jewelry stores by the time I stepped out in spandex for the first time. Of course I didn’t know that at the time. But the NYPD they had shown me a picture of him when they figured out who he was, to see if I knew him. I never forgot that face.” She ran a hand through her hair. 

“So when I saw it after pulling off the mask of a jewelry store thief, I… I went ballistic. I broke a couple of his bones. I had my hand around his throat, that’s when he started begging. Saying he had a kid, begging for me not to kill him.” She took a shaky breath. Ava placed a hand on her shoulder and Piper didn’t move. 

“That was when I remembered what Uncle Ben used to say, about choice. It occurred to me that if I killed him I’d be doing to his kid what he did to me. So I tied him up and left him there with the jewelry he’d stolen. Had JARVIS call in a tip and watched from a rooftop across the street. Then I went home and cried myself to sleep.” Ava pulled Piper into a hug. She sniffled into her friend’s shoulder for a minute. Piper pulled back first, scrubbing at her eyes and pulling her mask back on. 

“Let’s get the boys and go home.” Piper nodded and they leapt off back towards the boathouse.


	15. Mornings

Lugging the boys home was quite the job and Piper eventually just called her father for a Quinjet pickup. He managed to keep his questions to himself until they got the boys to medical. None of them were injured and Nova was starting to stir as Ava and Piper relayed the story of the night to Tony who listened quietly. When they were done he nodded and pulled both girls into a hug. 

“I know how losing family feels, pretty sure we all do. You did better than I would have in your shoes Ava. Grab something to eat and get some sleep both of you.” He sent them off with a promise to have JARVIS tell them if anything went south with the boys. They reached Piper’s level before she stopped dead in her tracks. Ava wasn’t paying attention and ran smack into her, sending them both tumbling to the ground. Ava pulled herself to her feet looking concerned at her friend who hadn’t even moved to catch herself. 

“Piper?” Ava was cursing herself out, she’d had Piper use a new power that none of them knew enough about. What if it had hurt her? Piper’s head popped up looking at Ava, there was panic in her bright blue eyes. 

“I fucked up Ava.” Ava raised an eyebrow as she pulled her friend to her feet. 

“What are you talking about?” Piper was shaking slightly. 

“Glen! Glen Stacy, the boy you almost jumped in Central Park tonight! I said his name! I was so distracted I didn’t even think about it, but I said his name! Spidergirl shouldn’t know his name! Fuck!” She slammed her head into the wall. Ava was surprised she didn’t leave a dent. 

“That’s not good.” Piper nodded into the wall. 

“And I’m going to coffee with Doc Connors tomorrow so we can meet up with a friend of ours and talk about my mutation. Which means I have to meet him in the Bio Chem lab, where Glen is interning. I should have let Kraven kill me.” Ava shook her head pushing Piper down the hall. 

“No, you’re being melodramatic. Look sleep on it. It’s possible he won’t even remember, besides isn’t he like a cops kid?” Piper nodded.

“Son of the police chief.” Ava nodded opening Piper’s door and steering her inside. 

“Well there you go. If he should ever meet Spidergirl, which really how likely is that in a city of three million give or take, that’s your excuse. Keeping an eye out for the families of the police force.” Piper nodded and flopped down on her covers. 

“You are the best Ava.” Ava smiled. 

“I know, get some sleep.” Piper was already snoring as Ava stepped out of the room, the door sliding closed behind her. She smiled at the door. She walked down the hall to her room a smile still on her face. She sat down on her bed and pulled a picture frame off the side table. Tony had made good on his promise and salvaged as much as he could from the Helicarrier crash, and Ava had been ecstatic when she’d found out that included one of the only pictures of her family she had. She smiled down at the photo of her, her father, and her grandfather smiling at the camera. 

“I did it. We did it Papa.” She flopped back on her own covers and fell into a peaceful sleep. 

 

Glen got up early the next morning. He showered quickly and changed into lab suitable clothes. His mother caught his eye on his way to the door. 

“Glen! You should have breakfast, gotta make sure that brain is firing on all cylinders.” Glen grinned and snagged a breakfast bar out of the cabinet. He had to hurry if he was going to catch her this morning. But he was again stopped before he could make it to the door, this time by his father. 

“You’re running out of here a bit early, thought you said you didn’t need to be in the lab until ten today.” Glen swore to himself. He had told his dad about his day at the lab, that he got to work on a top secret project for Tony Stark, but that he couldn’t say more about it. He had yet to tell his father about Mr. Starks wildly smart, cute as a button, motorcycle riding, possible superhero of a daughter. His dad grinned at him. 

“This need to leave early has nothing to do with science does it? Did you meet somebody at this internship?” Glen went bright red, which was all the answer his father needed. 

“This wouldn’t be the same girl who drove you home on her motorcycle the other day would it?” Glen went slightly pale. His father had never approved of motorcycles, they were very unsafe, unless you knew how to ride them. Piper definitely did though. He stuttered for a minute. His father laughed and shook his head. 

“Hey, she made you wear a helmet, it’s more than most kids your age do. She is your age, right?” Glen nodded. She was actually a few months younger than him, she had turned sixteen two months ago. His father smiled. 

“Alright, just checking. I do expect to hear about her later though. Maybe even get a name of this girl who’s got you rushing off to the lab three hours early.” Glen blushed bright red and ducked around his father. His father laughed as he slipped out the front door locking it behind him. He sighed and rushed down the stairs and out of his building. 

 

Piper hated mornings, she really did. She didn’t used to but as she’d discovered the hard way most spiders were nocturnal. So when she dragged herself into the kitchen in a pair of jeans and a rumpled Hawkeye t shirt no one was really surprised. She grumbled to herself as she poured a cup of coffee and dumped nearly four spoonful’s of sugar into it before dragging it over to the fridge and pulling out a bottle of chocolate syrup. She poured a generous amount into the mug and grabbed a spoon stirring her concoction as Clint shook his head at her. 

“Blasphemy.” He said snagging the coffee pot, which was still about halfway full and beginning to chug straight from the pot. Piper flipped him off and sipped her sugary concoction as she shuffled into the pantry in search of something pleasant to eat. Natasha shook her head at them.


	16. Another Manor

Dr. Connors smiled to himself as he snagged a travel mug of coffee from the counter. He would be stopping off in his lab to check on the models they’d left running overnight then He and Piper would be heading off for a manor in Westchester County. He took the elevator and smiled as he reached the lab level. He was a bit surprised that Glen hopped into the room pulling on his lab coat. He smiled at Dr. Connors who raised an eyebrow. 

“Mr. Stacy I wasn’t expecting to see you here so early.” Dr. Connors checked his watch and frowned. 

“You’re not supposed to be here for another hour and a half, is everything quite alright?” Glen nodded. 

“Everything’s fine, I wanted to see how the models worked out.” Dr. Connors nodded. They pulled up the simulations and frowned. None of them had gone well. Each and every one ended in the subject rejecting the new genes and mutating. Each trial ended with a deceased subject. Dr. Connors took a deep breath and shook his head. 

“No luck.” Glen patted him on his hand. 

“Abe and I will start running a few other variations while you’re out today.” A voice from the elevator made them both jump. 

“What animals are you using?” Glen turned and spotted Piper in the doorway. Her hair was a mess, she was holding a bright purple travel mug and had a pair of deep purple shades on that matched her Hawkeye t shirt. She tipped her glasses down her nose and snagged a lab coat from the closet before stepping into the lab. 

“We’ve been trying a few variations. A zebra fish, a few other animals who can regenerate cells, some that we know to have worked in certain individuals, like spiders.” Piper raised an eyebrow at Dr. Connors and he glanced down at his shoes. She sighed. 

“A spider isn’t gonna work. But I think you’re on the right track with the zebra fish, but that looks to be the only non spider cold blooded animal you’re trying. Have you thought about Lizards?” Dr. Connors frowned. 

“No.” Piper nodded and tapped a few keys, pulling up the biological profile of a simple Gecko. 

“See a zebra fish can regenerate cells, that’s all well and good but a lizard, like a Gecko can regenerate whole limbs, which is more what we’re shooting for yes?” Dr. Connors nodded looking over her shoulder as she tapped away on the keys. 

“It’ll take a lot of fiddling with the genes for it to work but it’s a possibility.” Piper’s watch beeped and she swore glancing down at her phone. 

“We’re gonna be late Doc.” Dr. Connors nodded and began to head for the exit. Glen cleared his throat, stepping in front of Piper’s forgotten coffee mug. 

“Um, I had a question about the sample you had me test yesterday Dr. Connors.” The two scientists paused at the elevator door. 

“Yes Mr. Stacy.” He took a deep breath. 

“I was just wondering if the venom might appear in smaller ways, like mixing with the subjects saliva?” Dr. Connors thought for a minute. 

“It’s possible, I don’t know for sure. See if you can run those variations for me today and start running the numbers on the lizard idea.” Piper cleared her throat.

“Doctor, we’re gonna be late.” Dr. Connors nodded and they stepped into the elevator. Glen glanced behind him and thought for a moment. He should leave it alone. He shouldn’t mess with her stuff, she was his bosses friend and the daughter of the owner of the company, he could be jeopardizing his entire future for the sake of curiosity. Then he remembered something Dr. Connors had told him during his first tour of the lab. 

‘Science means taking risks. Sometimes the risk can outweigh the rewards but you’ll never know if you don’t take risks. Knowledge is our trade gentlemen, always remember science means taking risks.’ Glen swore to himself as he grabbed a sample swab off one of the desks and swiped it along the opening of the mug. He had to know. 

 

The first few miles out of New York proper were quiet, just the radio playing as Piper drove them down the road in her deep blue Huracan Spyder. Dr. Connors had laughed that that was the car Tony had decided to buy his daughter for her sixteenth birthday. Piper nodded, the irony was not lost on her. Nor had it been lost on Tony who’d laughed his ass off when he’d presented it to her on her birthday. They were about halfway to their destination when Piper finally spoke up. 

“So… Glen Stacy. What do you think of him Doc?” Dr. Connors frowned slightly. 

“He’s a bright young man. Brilliant with chemistry and biology. I think he’ll take on the world someday. I think you two would get along very well, assuming you don’t already.” Piper frowned as she turned onto a more residential road. “What’s this about? You seem concerned.” Piper chewed on her lip for a moment before responding. 

“I think he might know my… little secret.” Dr. Connors frowned, sitting up straighter in the bright red custom seats. 

“How?” Piper sighed and explained the incident with the blacklight. The doctor himself had been too interested in the lesson he’d been giving to pay much attention to the two teens. He promised himself that he would pay more attention next time. Then she told him about her slip up the night before. 

“But I don’t know if he even heard me or was just smart enough to run from an obviously bad situation. So…” Dr. Connors shook his head. 

“What should we do? Do we tell your father?” Piper shook her head. 

“No. Dad would over react. We have to figure out how much he knows. Besides I wont ruin someone’s career just because they might know something I’d rather they didn’t.” Dr. Connors nodded and glanced around. They were on what looked like a country road and he frowned. 

“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Piper grinned. 

“That’s right you’ve never actually been out here have you?” Dr. Connors shook his head. 

“No. I’ve been in contact with Dr. McCoy a few times over email and over the phone but I’ve never actually met the man.” Piper smiled then she thought about it for a minute. 

“You know he’s a mutant right? As is everybody out here right?” Dr. Connors nodded.

“Is that not why we’re here?” Piper nodded. 

“I mean yes, but to some people it can be a bit of a shock.” Dr. Connors nodded as they pulled up to a set of wrought iron gates. Old brick pillars stood on either side of the gates and a pristine plaque on the left one proclaimed it Xaviers School for Gifted Youngsters. Piper stopped the car at the gates and in a moment they slid open and Piper pulled the car up to a large roundabout that sat in front of an expansive old English style mansion. A few kids paused on the steps and stared at the expensive car that had rolled up to the school. Piper spotted a few familiar faces in the crowd as she turned off the car and pocketed the keys. She stepped out of the car and immediately heard an excited squeal from the crowd. In a moment her arms were full of a very light body, dressed in a pink cardigan and grey capris. Piper wrapped her arms around the other brunette. 

“Hi Kitty!” The other brunette bounced backwards her long hair up in her signature ponytail. 

“You haven’t been by in forever! We’ve been following you and your team on the news. God we were so worried when SHEILD fell and nobody saw or heard from you for like two weeks!” Piper flinched.

“I know, that wasn’t so good.” A puff of smoke distracted her as Kurt appeared, fully blue, his tail swinging on top of her car.

“Let her breathe Kitty.” Piper smiled. 

“Hey don’t scratch the paint Kurt!” He stuck out his forked tongue at her. She grinned at him and webbed his mouth shut. He squeaked and the few remaining confused students seemed to understand that there was no threat and went back to ogling the car. Piper smiled as she spotted Scott Summers shoo the crowd along. 

“Come on kids! You have classes to get to, go on.” Piper shook her head. 

“I keep forgetting you guys are a year round school. It’s horrible.” Scott laughed. 

“To be fair most of the summer classes are voluntary. And the others are about controlling your powers.” Piper nodded and glanced around. She didn’t seem to see what she was looking for and Scott raised an eyebrow as he escorted Piper and Dr. Connors inside. 

“Everything ok?” Piper frowned. 

“Logan isn’t here is he?” Scott nodded. 

“He is actually.” Piper swore under her breath.

“Damn it. He hates me. I don’t even know why.” Scott shrugged. 

“Logan likes very few people in this world.” Piper nodded.


	17. Dark Within

Logan’s nose wrinkled as he caught a whiff of someone new entering the mansion. He frowned and the Professor raised an eyebrow at him. He cut straight to the point. 

“What’s the Spider Squirt doing here?” The Professor got a look of concentration on his face then smiled. 

“Ah she has arrived. Well she’s had some further developments to her mutation and Hank has offered to help her and her associate Dr. Connors understand what’s happening and find out if the mutation is likely to continue.” Logan shook his head. 

“I don’t trust her.” Professor Xavier frowned. 

“I still don’t understand that, you seem to be the only hero she knows who doesn’t trust her. Why Logan?” He frowned. 

Nearly five months ago he’d been tracking Mastermind through New York when the telepath decided to take on a bank heist. Spidergirl had gotten there first and wrapped him up for SHEILD. But before the telepath could be dragged off he’d tried to swap their minds. Logan had gotten a glimpse into Spidergirl’s head right before Mastermind went reeling and fell comatose. He hadn’t seen what he’d expected someone as bright and cheerful as her to have in her mind. Instead a black mass of negativity had lashed out at both him and the telepath. It had felt like acid against his mind, breaking down the connection the telepath had tried to create. Mastermind had been comatose for nearly three months before he woke up babbling about black monsters in the darkness. He’d escaped SHEILD before it fell but no one had heard from him sense. Logan sighed. 

“No one with something that dark in their head can be all good.” He said after describing the experience to the Professor. He nodded. 

“I don’t believe you’re giving her the chance she deserves, we all have darkness in us Logan, you of all people know that.” Logan nodded and sighed. 

“I know that Professor, I just… Darkness like that affects who you are, I know that, better than most. If that kid ever loses it…” He left the sentence hanging, the Professor could tell what he meant well enough without his having to elaborate. He nodded. 

“I understand your concern Logan but again I don’t think you’re giving her enough credit.” Logan rolled his eyes and followed the Professor out of his office and down to the lab levels where Hank was already deep in conversation with a man who was missing his right arm from just below the shoulder. Piper Parker was leaning against the wall listening to them and occasionally adding tidbits of information. Hank smiled at the Professor and gestured him into the lab.

“Professor, please come in. We were just discussing some tests we were planning to run if Piper here is comfortable with it.” Piper grinned at Hank and Logan pulled a face at the set of what looked like pincers in front of her teeth. Those hadn’t been there before, or at least he’d never seen them before. 

“Of course Dr. McCoy, I trust you. Besides it’s kind of important to know if the mutation is going to spread further. Wouldn’t want to wake up one day with eight eyes.” Hank nodded and they began to run a few tests. 

 

Piper sipped a glass of grape juice as Dr. Connors looked over her latest blood sample. She’d had more blood samples taken today than she could ever remember. But at least this was voluntary and she could trust Dr. Connors and Dr, McCoy not to create living slime or green insane people. Professor Xavier rolled up to where she was sitting and held out a plate full of cookies. 

“Ororo has been experimenting in the kitchen again.” Piper grinned and snagged one of the cookies off the plate. It was still warm. She sighed as she bit into it, there was caramel inside. 

“These are fantastic, please pass along my compliments to the chef.” The Professor smiled. 

“I’ll be sure to do that. I am curious though. The pincers aren’t the only new power you’ve developed are they?” Piper frowned. 

“What do you mean?” The Professor set the plate of cookies down on a table nearby. 

“Logan told me about what happened with Mastermind a few months ago. You didn’t used to be able to do that. You didn’t used to be able to tell when a telepath read your thoughts, much less defend against them.” Piper shrugged. 

“That’s not because of my mutation though.” The Professor raised an eyebrow. Piper sighed and told him all about Venom. It was nice to have someone to talk to about this who wouldn’t judge her for it or worry themselves sick over her. He might worry but not the same way her father did. She sighed as she finished telling him about what Venom was. 

“I didn’t figure out that there was a side effect until about four and a half months ago when that sleeping sickness hit.” She explained how she’d accidently lashed out at a psychic during that crisis. 

“After that I figured I could channel that piece of myself at people who tried to get in my head. I hadn’t tried it knowingly until Mastermind. I didn’t know it would do that to him.” Piper went silent. The Professor nodded, he could tell she wasn’t lying.

“It’s a useful skill to have. I am curious. Would you be willing to test it on me? I would very much like to see how strong this ability to block and even throw telepaths out of your mind is.” Logan, who had been lurking in the corner of the room for the past few hours was about to step forwards to protest when Piper shook her head violently. 

“No. I’m sorry but I’m not willing to risk it. It’s not safe for you. Even I don’t know how strong it is and the last person who tried to get into my head may have gone crazy. Besides I’m not proud of that part of myself, the fewer people who know about it the better.” The Professor nodded and grabbed a cookie off the plate. 

“That’s quite alright. I appreciate your concern for my health Miss. Parker.” Piper smiled at him and grabbed another cookie for herself.


	18. Lunch

Hank bounced over to Piper and the Professor a wide smile on his face. Piper grinned at him as he set down his papers. 

“So we found some interesting things in your tests. It looks like your mutation isn’t becoming stronger, the pincers have likely always been there but the mystical drum you described pulled out the more animalistic side of you, forcing them to develop faster than they were, hence the bleeding and discomfort when they first appeared.” Piper nodded. 

“That makes sense.” Dr. Connors frowned slightly. 

“I’m skeptical about the whole magic business.” Piper shook her head. 

“Don’t knock it till you try it Doc. Trust me I didn’t believe at first either but It’s way more real than I’d like it to be.” Hank and the Professor nodded. Hank continued. 

“So it looks like you wont be developing anymore similarities to your spider brethren. Now about your venom, your intern was right Dr. Connors. It’s not deadly, it’s a paralytic. It is also present in your saliva though not in any amounts that would be harmful to anyone you should chose to swap spit with.” Piper went bright red. Then she went pale. 

“Oh shit!” She shot to her feet as everyone stared at her. She turned to Dr. Connors. 

“Glen defiantly knows.” Dr. Connors went slightly pale. 

“How can you be sure?” Then comprehension seemed to dawn on him. “He asked about saliva this morning.” Piper nodded. 

“And I left my travel coffee mug in the lab.” Connors went as pale as Piper was. 

“Oh shit.” Piper took off out of the lab, calling out her goodbyes over her shoulder as Dr. Connors sprinted after her. Logan shook his head as the Professor frowned slightly.

“That girl has the worst luck.” Hank nodded slightly. 

 

Glen stared at the results in front of him. He had been right. There were trace amounts of the venom in Piper’s saliva along with the coffee and an ungodly amount of sugar. He closed his findings, quickly deleting them off the server and stepping back over to the actual project he was supposed to be working on. Piper had been right, they were making more progress with the Lizard DNA than they had been with anything other than the zebra fish, but they were still no closer to an actual lab test yet. He glanced up as the elevator door as it opened. Dr. Connors looked slightly ruffled as he and Piper who still looked somewhat like she’d just rolled out of bed. He met her gaze which was calculating, not the normal smile she shot at the interns. He broke the gaze first and Piper frowned. 

 

Piper put a hand on Dr. Connors shoulder as he made to step forwards to talk to Glen. 

“I got this one Doc. You go ahead off to lunch.” Dr. Connors smiled and nodded. Piper stepped over to him. He glanced up at her. 

 

Glen would be lying if he said he wasn’t worried that he was about to be fired on the spot but instead Piper smiled at him as she snagged an office chair and sat down next to him. Dr. Connors talked Abe into lunch again and the two left before Piper spoke. It was a Saturday so there weren’t nearly as many people on the floor. 

“How are you settling in here at SI Mr. Stacy?” Piper asked. No one even looked twice at them. One of the benefits of being Tony Stark’s Kid was that no one really questioned why she was in any given place in the tower. Glen frowned at her slightly.

“Pretty well I think. And please call me Glen.” Piper nodded. She spun in her chair, halting it when she was facing him again. 

“Do you wanna get out of here?” Glen raised an eyebrow at her. 

“What do you mean?” 

“For lunch. I know this great little place in midtown. Not too far from here. Chinese, little hole in the wall but the food is fantastic. Come on my treat.” Glen didn’t have time to respond as she dragged him away down the elevator to the garage. This time she didn’t bother changing into her leather outfit, she shoved her spare helmet into his hands and mounted her bike, her own helmet already in place. 

“You coming?” Glen thought for a moment. Did he want to get more involved in this than he already was? Could he handle what he might find out? Then he caught the look in her bright blue eyes and nodded pulling on the helmet and mounting the bike behind her. 

The restaurant was small and they knew Piper by name, smiling and greeting her like she’d been there a thousand times. One of the older women behind the counter winked at her as she handed them menus and directed them to a secluded booth in the corner of the restaurant. 

“You and your boyfriend take that booth. More privacy that way.” Piper blushed bright red. 

“Thanks Mrs. Tanimura, but he’s not my boyfriend.” She winked again and nodded. 

“Of course not.” Piper plopped down in the booth and Glen sat across from her. They ordered and were silent as they waited for their food. It arrived quickly and the waitress smiled at them and promised to leave them alone until they called for her. Piper picked up her chopsticks and snagged a wonton off plate in the middle of the table. Glen took one of the dumplings and bit into it. They were silent for another moment. 

“You were right, this is fantastic food.” Piper nodded. 

“I know. My aunt used to love this place.” Glen raised an eyebrow.

“Your Aunt the Black Widow.” Piper shook her head. 

“No, my Aunt who was married to my biological father’s brother. My Aunt May. She was a wonderful person, great taste in everything. I used to come here with my Uncle Ben after she died.” Piper glanced around. “It hasn’t changed much. Not even the people have changed all that much.” Glen grinned slightly as Piper took a bite of her orange chicken. 

“Seems like they know you pretty well.” Piper nodded. 

“Yeah, I come here a lot. Sometimes we all order takeout from here.” Piper nodded to a picture on the opposite wall, it was the older lady, Mrs. Tanimura with the Avengers, it was signed and everything. Glen let out a snort and Piper grinned. 

“I took that picture.” She smiled at him and he relaxed slightly and snagged a wonton. Piper sighed slightly as she took another bite of her orange chicken. She chewed then she spoke. 

“So the project Dr. Connors put you on yesterday. He probably shouldn’t have, in all honesty. But he trusts you. He thinks you’re brilliant. Pretty sure he wants to hire you straight out of high school.” Glen’s eyes went wide. 

“Can he do that?” Piper shrugged. 

“He has to go through the proper channels but yes technically he could. Proper channels being my dad and Pepper. Mostly Pepper. You should meet her, I think you two would get along spectacularly.” Glen smiled slightly. 

“Really?” Piper nodded through another bite of chicken, this time with some rice. She swallowed and spoke. 

“Yeah, you’re both very organized. Also very smart. Smarter than people give you credit for. Both very good at finding out things other people might not want you to know.” Glen nearly choked on his dumpling. Piper smiled slightly. 

“I want to make it clear, you’re not in trouble. I’m honestly kind of impressed. It took the last person who found out quite a long time to figure it out.” Glen glanced down at his plate. 

“I mean to be fair you did give me a big hint last night.” Piper blushed bright red. Glen had to admit she was pretty cute when she blushed, but no she was definitely off limits. He wouldn’t get involved with the daughter of the man who controlled his future career. Or at least he was going to do his damnedest not to, but with eyes like that he could easily picture a string of boys following her around her school drooling over her. 

“I did not mean to do that. I’ve been under a lot of stress lately.” Glen nodded. 

“I imagine keeping that to yourself cant be easy. You know I’m a pretty good listener. If you ever need anyone to talk to. I know something of what it’s like, I mean cause my dad is on the force. He’s always talking to my mom about how tough it can be. Especially since the supervillain boom.” Piper smiled at him and he felt his heart flip. 

“I’d like that. Now I have to run to the restroom. Be right back.” She slipped out of the booth and Glen shook his head to himself. 

“Oh I am in trouble.” He sighed into his coke.


	19. Taken

Piper laughed as she and Glen walked back into the tower. After she’d returned from the bathroom he’d relaxed slightly and they’d slipped into comfortable conversation about science. According to Glen the lizard DNA idea was working well, so well they had scrapped the other combinations. He was telling her about his little brothers pranks he liked to pull as they entered the elevator. They reached the lab level and both pulled on lab coats as they entered the room. 

“Seriously. He put your dads badge in Jell-O?” Glen nodded and Piper snorted a laugh. Glen grinned. 

“I swear this is true. He put my dads badge in Jell-O along with my moms salad tongs and her favorite paintbrush. He was grounded for a month.” Piper laughed. 

“That’s nothing, I’ve been grounded for three months before.” Glen raised an eyebrow at her. 

“Am I allowed to know what for?” Piper glanced around them. No one was paying them any attention. 

“The Helicarier crash, when SHEILD fell. I was there.” Glen nodded, he’d kind of figured, since she was Spidergirl she would have been front and center for that. She pushed an errant strand of brown hair out of her face. “It’s sort of also how dad found out my… little secret.” Glen nodded as he pulled up his latest set of notes on the models. 

“Ah, yeah I could see how keeping that to yourself could get you in trouble.” Piper laughed and sat on the table next to Glen. He smiled at her. 

“It’s nice to have someone I can talk to about this. Kind of a fresh perspective.” Glen grinned. 

“Glad I can help.” Piper’s pocket buzzed and she pulled out her phone. She excused herself and answered the call. She glanced back over her shoulder at Glen as she spoke into the phone.

“Hello?” 

“Hey Piper!” It was Harry. She glanced away from Glen. 

“Harry! It’s so good to hear from you.” Harry laughed. 

“I hear you’re in the doghouse with MJ again.” Piper frowned. 

“Only slightly. Dad had a lab emergency and needed my help, so I had to duck out.” Harry nodded. 

“I know. She told me. Eddie says he’s going out of town with the Bugle for a few days, we were gonna go out for coffee, we were wondering if you’d like to join us.” Piper grinned.

“I’d love to. When?” 

“We’re heading out now, meet you at the usual place in twenty?” Piper nodded and agreed before hanging up and heading back over to the station where Dr. Connors was talking with Glen in hushed tones. Piper stepped up to them in time to catch the last few seconds of their conversation.

“She means a lot to everyone in this building is all I’m saying.” Piper smiled slightly. 

“Dr. Connors, don’t intimidate the interns. I can do that perfectly well on my own. Besides, we like Glen he’s brilliant.” Dr. Connors nodded and stepped away.

“I do have to run though. Meeting up with a friend for coffee. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She left and Glen glanced after her for a moment before he went back to work. 

 

Piper took a taxi to their usually coffee shop. It was a little corner shop that looked out on a busy thoroughfare towards the edge of Midtown where it met up with Hells Kitchen. The coffee was fantastic and the small version of Spidergirl’s mask painted in the top corner of the front window always made Piper smile. There was also a set of red horns glued onto the figurine of a chef that stood next to the sign that displayed the special coffee of the day. Matt Murdock, a friend of Piper’s for about a year, had laughed his head off when she’d told him about it. About the coffee shop that supported local heroes. Piper had known the Devil of Hells Kitchen for about a year but they’d only discovered each other’s identities about two months ago, a week before her sixteenth birthday. He was only five years older than her and was one of the few people who actually put up with her puns. They’d never hung out outside of their costumes though, it would be odd for the daughter of Tony Stark to know a brand-new lawyer from Hells Kitchen. 

Piper grinned at Harry who waved her over to their booth. Eddie was sitting across from Harry, his camera bag on the seat next to him, so Piper squeezed in next to Harry. Harry grinned and waved down the waitress. Piper ordered her usual and the waitress, one of the regular ones Kendra smiled at them. 

“You know for a second there I was afraid Mr. Osborn here had replaced you Piper.” Piper laughed as Harry went bright red and Eddie stifled a laugh. Harry’s glare had absolutely no heat behind it as Kendra walked off to get Piper’s coffee. 

“How come she calls you by your first name and not me?” Harry grouched into his coffee. He’d always been a bit touchy about people calling him Mr. Osborn, generally only people he paid called him that, or people he didn’t like, not that the two were mutually exclusive. But lately he’d been even more sensitive about it. He was in temporary control of Oscorp after all since his father was still missing. Well officially he was just missing, there were very few people who actually knew what had happened to Norman Osborn. That he was currently out there somewhere, large, green and bat shit crazy. Of course everyone currently at the table knew that but Harry didn’t know that Piper knew. Eddie had been there when Spidergirl had broken the news to Harry, in the middle of a fight with the Goblin. Piper laid a hand over Harry’s, her smile soft and comforting.

“You’re intimidating. I’m bouncy.” Harry snorted a laugh as Eddie nodded slightly, sipping his espresso. 

“She has a point Harry. You do kind of give off this, I could buy the world if I wanted to, vibe.” Piper giggled as Harry rolled his eyes slightly. 

“I mean she’s just as rich as I am, if not more so.” Eddie shrugged slightly. 

“I know that but she doesn’t carry herself the same way you do. You strut, she bounces.” Piper nodded, holding back giggles as Harry rolled his eyes at them. Kendra returned with Piper’s coffee and had barely set it down when Piper’s spider sense went ballistic. The window to their left shattered with a boom and Piper pulled Harry out of the booth hoping Eddie was alright as she twisted, landing on top of Harry. 

Something metallic bounced into the coffee shop through the broken window and Piper spotted a gas grenade before it burst open and the whole coffee shop flooded with orange smoke. She coughed as she pulled the collar of her shirt up over the nose and mouth. Harry hacked below her before his eyes fluttered shut. Piper felt her heart going a mile a minute. She felt for a pulse as she coughed through her shirt. It was there, and steady. She heard several thumps around her along with the screams of the people on the street. She gagged as her shirt slipped and the gas invaded her nose and mouth. Her vision blurred as several people in full tactical gear including gas masks rushed into the half destroyed shop. She did her damnedest to fight back as she was dragged to her feet, but the smoke was muddling her senses. She knew she would burn through the negative effects faster than anyone else in the vicinity but that didn’t mean it didn’t affect her at all. 

“She’s still awake.” One of the men spoke from behind his gas mask as another dragged Harry up and tossed him over his shoulder. 

 

“Fix it.” Piper got a blip from her spidey sense before the butt of a gun was brought down on the back of her head and she blacked out. 

 

The solder tossed the now limp girl over his shoulder and the small group raced out of the shop into the street. Cameras were flashing around them as the beat of helicopter blades forced pedestrians back. They tossed their captives into the chopper and hopped in themselves, both manning guns on either side while another man strapped the two teens into the seats. They were no good to them dead after all. The chopper took off as one of the onlookers snapped a photo of the symbol on the side, a skull surrounded by curling tentacles.


	20. Captive

Piper stirred slightly. Her head was killing her. She groaned and blinked. The light was too bright, way too bright. She blinked again and the room came into focus. It was small, with stone walls and a single blacked out window. She recognized it for what it was with ease, one way glass. She looked around again. The room was bare save for a metal stake in the ground, attached to the stake was a chain that itself was attached to a set of cuffs around her wrists. Her shoulders were stiff from sitting in the same position for who knew how long. She blinked sluggishly. The last thing she remembered was… the coffee shop. The shattering glass, the gas grenade. Harry! She jerked upright, straining at the chains. She couldn’t be sure who was watching through the glass but there were ways besides super strength to get out of a situation like this. 

 

Harry blinked at the light above him. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened. He remembered being at the coffee shop, but then… something had broken the window.

“Piper!” He sat bolt upright only to be yanked back slightly by a set of cuffs attached to his wrists and linked to a chain behind him on the floor. He struggled for a minute before a door near him opened and a tall man with a monocle over his right eye smiled at him, closing the door behind himself. 

“So sorry about the rough treatment Mr. Osborn. My men can be a bit, heavy handed sometimes.” Harry stared up at the man. 

“Who are you?” The man shook his head. 

“My name is of no importance. You however are quite important, to many people.” Harry’s frown deepened. 

“What are you talking about?” The mans smile never wavered. 

“The board of directors for your company would pay anything to get you back. They need you while your father is missing, a figurehead for the company. See since SHEILD fell my funding has been running dry. And keeping the Avengers at bay takes money. Though your little friend will provide quite the insurance policy against them.” Harry stiffened. 

“If you lay a hand on her I swear to god.” The man smiled and walked to the door. 

“You’ll do what Mr. Osborn? You’re not in a position to be making any kind of demands.” He opened the door and motioned a few men inside. They were carrying camera equipment. The tall man patted another of the men on the shoulder. 

“You know what to do, I’m going to go greet our other guest.” Harry tried to stand, to try and stop him but he was shoved back to the floor. One of the men who’d brought in the camera equipment stepped on the chains holding Harry to the floor preventing him from rising again. 

 

Baron Wolfgang Von Strucker was having a fantastic day. His plan, so long in the making, was coming along well. He had been looking for a weak link in the Avengers since they had been formed. Three months ago a chink in the armor had appeared in the form of a teenage girl from Queens. Piper Parker-Stark. The adopted daughter of Tony Stark. Once the truth had come out it wasn’t hard to dig up the connections and find the paperwork. It had only taken him a month, he’d had to go through back channels and avoid Starks mainframe at all costs lest he be discovered but he’d found the proof. And it was quite convenient for him that she and Harry Osborn were quite close, as he’d been planning the abduction of the heir to Oscorp for a while as well. Originally he’d planned to use the young Osborn as a bargaining chip against his father, to set Oscorp on the right path, Hydra’s path. But now with Norman Osborn missing that wasn’t really an option. 

He straightened his tie slightly as he stepped down the halls of the compound. It was buried deep, both literally and figuratively. He preferred his main base in Sokovia but taking the girl there would have been too big a risk. They were no where near finished with their experiments there though they had found a pair of eager volunteers. Both seemed to possess a recessive X gene. If his scientists could pull that to the surface then they would have powerful weapons in the twins. But right now he had to focus on is current captive. He smiled as he opened the door. 

She was much more coherent than the boy, likely more dangerous too. At least if the Avengers had thought to train her at all. Which Stark had stated they didn’t but Baron Strucker didn’t believe it for a minute. Maybe Stark hadn’t taught his daughter any of his tricks but that still left five other Avengers who could have taught her anything. He stepped into the room, a set of bright blue intelligent eyes following his every move. She wasn’t struggling against the chains for the moment. Hers were quite a bit shorter than the boys, he was less of a threat. Baron Strucker smiled at her. 

 

Tony Stark was absolutely livid. He could practically feel his blood beginning to boil as he scrolled through the evidence the NYPD had sent over to the tower. The attack had taken place nearly four hours ago, he’d been on a jet heading to Japan for a conference when he’d gotten the call. He’d immediately hopped into his suit and burned out his thrusters making it back to New York in under twenty minutes. But he was still wound like a grandfather clock. Four hours ago his daughter had been taken, every single Avenger was working themselves to the bone looking. Including Steve’s new friend Falcon. The door to the lab opened and Natasha strolled in holding a file. She slapped it down on the table in front of Tony. 

“Hydra.” Was all she said as she pointed to the picture clipped to the outside of the file. It was a slightly blurry photo of the helicopter that had reportedly taken Piper and Harry Osborn after the attack on the coffee shop, their usual coffee shop. Tony went pale and tapped his com unit. 

“Avengers, assemble! Get to the tower now!”


	21. Resilience

Tony was shaking. This was so much worse than anything he could have imagined. Hydra had his daughter, had had her for four hours ten minutes and fifteen seconds. It didn’t matter to him if they’d taken her because she was his kid, or because they’d figured out who Spidergirl was, or even if it was because of the Osborn brat. All he cared about was getting her back, now. He had JARVIS searching for any sign of the helicopter that had disappeared out of New York’s airways just after taking the two teens onboard. Steve was standing at the front of the room at the moment talking to Natasha. 

“Nothing yet?” Natasha shook her head. Sam Wilson stood off to the side. He stepped over to Steve with a glance at Tony who was pacing. 

“Listen I know the kid is important but we haven’t been able to dig up anything on Hydra since SHEILD fell. Just that a lot of the rats didn’t go down with the ship. We have nothing to go on. Have we thought about what happens if we don’t find her?” Tony’s head snapped up, ice in his eyes as he stared at the newcomer. 

“Not an option preschool.” Sam nodded slightly.

“I know that, but we need to be prepared.” Tony stepped up to Sam glaring at the man. 

“That is my kid out there. I will tear the world apart to find her if I have to. Not finding her is not an option.” Sam raised his hands in surrender. Tony nodded. 

“Sam is right about one thing though. We have nothing to go on. They ditched her phone, Harry’s too. And both their watches. We need another way to track her.” Natasha said stepping forwards eyes daring Tony to argue with her. Someone cleared their throat in the doorway. 

“We had an idea about that.” The Avengers looked over at the door and spotted Spidergirl’s team, sans the girl herself, standing in the doorway. Sam raised an eyebrow. He’d only been to the tower once before and Piper had been out, no one would say doing what. Danny stepped forwards bowing slightly. 

“I have a friend, a master of the mystic arts, he may be able to help us track her.” Tony snorted. 

“Magic? You know what go for it. At this point I’ll take all the help I can get.” Danny nodded and lead the others out of the tower and towards the New York Sanctum. 

 

Piper spit blood. Baron Strucker sighed as he pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and whipped at his knuckles. She glared up at him as blood slowly seeped out of the split in her lip. 

“This is very simple Miss Stark. Give us the access codes to the armor, the mainframe and JARVIS and we’ll let you go.” Piper spit again, this time at Baron Strucker. It landed on his shirt and he let out a sigh before backhanding her across the cheek, sending her sprawling as far as the chains would let her. He was way too strong for a normal human. He smiled at her slightly. 

“You’re quite resilient, I’ll grant you that. Stubborn just like your father. Though he’s not really your father is he, no matter what the rags America calls magazines would have the world believe.” Piper struggled back to her knees. There was a knock at the door and the Baron Strucker sighed. 

“Come in.” The door opened and a man in black tactical gear stepped into the room. The symbol of Hydra was emblazoned over his heart. 

“Herr Strucker, there has been a development elsewhere.” The man nodded slightly and stepped out into the hallway with the solder. He closed the door behind him and turned to the other man before backhanding him as well. 

“No names in front of the captives. What developments? They had better be important, I was in the middle of an interrogation as you well know.” The man stood back up straight, ignoring the blood trickling from his nose. 

“I am sorry Herr Strucker. It’s the twins. The doctors say they have found a serum that they believe will trigger their mutations.” Strucker nodded and wiped his knuckles again. 

“Very well. I will go back to Sokovia. Let her stew with her injuries for an hour or so then send in another interrogator but don’t kill her. Minor injuries are fine but she’s of more use to us alive. What of our other guest.” The solder nodded, falling into step behind Strucker. 

“He has been surprisingly compliant after we threatened the girl in front of him.” Strucker smiled and nodded. 

“I believed that to be the case. And the ransom video has been delivered?” The solder nodded. 

“Yes Herr Strucker.” He nodded and stepped onto the elevator.

“Good, make sure my orders are carried out. I’ll return once I’m not needed in with the twins.” The man gave him the two armed salute Hydra used and turned to carry out his orders as Strucker took the elevator up to the small shed that was the only entrance and exit of the compound. There was a helicopter waiting for him as he stepped out of the small room. He smiled. The Avengers would never think to look here. The Petersburg State Forest Preserve was just over a thousand acres and nearly seven feet beneath that sat the New York Hydra Compound. It wasn’t all that big, staffed by a regiment of only one hundred and fifty, it was more of a waypoint for items and indeed people Hydra deemed important enough to take. Once he got back from Sokovia he would be moving the teens. Each to a separate facility, the boy somewhere where he could be held without causing any problems, until they drained Oscorp of all its resources. After that they wouldn’t need him anymore. 

The girl was something else though. She had never once shown any pain or discomfort as he questioned her. He knew he’d broken at least one of her toes, stamping down on them with steel toes boots. But she hadn’t even flinched. She was well trained. He wondered idly if any of his old contacts at the Red Room had any positions they were looking to fill. The girl would be the perfect candidate, after a bit of reprograming. The Winter Solder had gone AWOL after the fall of SHEILD, they’d need someone new to help shape the world, who better than the daughter of an Avenger. He smiled to himself as the chopper took off for an airfield in New Jersey. 

 

Piper couldn’t tell how much time had passed. It could have been minutes or hours but the man, Herr Strucker, didn’t return. She needed to move now, before they came back. She was not a damsel to sit in distress and if they really were Hydra then nothing good could happen if she stayed. She had to find Harry and get the hell out of here. She took a deep breath and grabbed the thumb on her right hand yanking hard. A crack resounded around the room as she managed to dislocate her thumb and pull her right hand out of the cuff with only a little difficulty. She whimpered slightly as she snapped her thumb back into place. Then after a moment waiting to see if some alarm had been raised she repeated the process with her other hand. She looked around for nay kind of weapon but found nothing. She swore slightly. The cuffs were welded to the stake but it seemed to have shaken loose during her beating. With a little bit more than human strength she yanked it free and lobbed it through the one way glass. She leapt into the small room adjoining the one where she’d been held and snagged a long shard of shattered glass from the floor before slipping out of the unlocked door.

 

Dr. Strange had been more than happy to assist when Danny explained the situation to him. It didn’t take him too long to preform the spell either since Danny had thought to bring Piper’s mask as something she cared about a great deal. A few words were spoken over a map as Spidergirl’s mask floated between Dr. Strange’s hands. A bright point of light appeared on the map and Dr. Strange opened his eyes. 

“There.” He said pointing to the now burned spot on the map. Danny nodded thanking his friend and taking up the map. The team headed back to Stark Tower.


	22. Let Loose

Piper stayed quiet in the vent as several men passed under it. She had figured out long ago that people didn’t tend to look up when they were looking for Piper, looking for Spidergirl sure they looked up, but not for Piper. No one seemed to have noticed she was even missing yet. This place was very basic, it didn’t look like anything scientific happened here. It had electricity but the cameras were lacking, lucky her. She pondered her luck as she snuck along the vent, the piece of glass she’d taken from the room they’d been holding her in between her teeth. She needed a better weapon, she knew that. She took a deep breath through her nose as she took a left turn and paused as she looked down at the room beneath her. It looked, and smelled like a locker room. There was only one man in it at the moment. He couldn’t be older than twenty, with short wiry blonde hair and pale skin. Piper thought for a second before she made her decision. 

He never saw her coming as she leapt down behind him and struck him across the back of his head, slamming his forehead into the locker in front of him. She caught him before he could crumple to the floor though. She grunted slightly, he was heavier than she’d been expecting. She leaned him against the lockers for a moment and sighed as she rushed to the doors and locked them. She stepped back over to the unconscious Hydra agent. 

“Ok big guy, don’t get excited.” She said as she reached around him and unhooked his belt. There was a gun holstered there, just a simple Glock, and three other magazine rounds, alongside a knife and a taser. Piper clipped the belt around her waist and checked the gun. It was already loaded, the safety in place. She nodded to herself tossing aside the glass shard, it landed in a nearby trashcan. She scaled up the lockers and slipped back into the vents as quietly as possible. 

 

Tony stared at the map Danny had just handed him. There was a small burned spot, that was supposedly where Piper was. The Petersburg State Forest Preserve was only one hundred and seventy-one miles away. It would have taken the helicopter that took Piper and Harry about two hours to get there. A Quinjet could be there in under a half hour. There was only one problem as everyone got suited up.

“No. You’re not going.” Tony said as his armor folded around him making him feel a bit more secure. The whole team was protesting behind him as Hawkeye gathered arrows and knives. Natasha was stowing her batons as Sam tested the new Wings Tony had developed for him. 

“Listen to me!” The team shut up. “I will not stop until I get her back. If I have to call a code green I will.” Bruce nodded.

“The other guy would be very happy with that. He really wants out on these guys.” Tony nodded. 

“And we can’t risk any of you. Piper would never forgive me if anything happened to any of you. None of you have enough experience with this team to do this. Next time sure, after we have more training and when we’re all a bit more emotionally stable. But I won’t risk anyone I don’t have to.” Ava nodded dragging the boys over to the door, Danny helping her. 

“You’ll let us know the minute you find her though right?” Tony nodded.

“The very minute. Thank you Ava.” She nodded at him and continued dragging Nova down the hall. Tony breathed a sigh of relief and stepped up beside Steve, inside the Quinjet. Steve laid a hand on his shoulder.

“We’re gonna get her back.” Tony nodded. 

“I just hope she’s alright.” Clint stepped up to them as Natasha took the controls. She was the fastest pilot of the group. 

“I wouldn’t worry about her too much, she’s got the training to handle this.” Tony raised an eyebrow at him as Thor swung his hammer in lazy circles, bouncing his foot. Bruce was sitting next to him looking distinctly green around the gills. Tony was worried about what the Hulk might do when he inevitably broke free of Bruce’s control. 

“I’m serious though Tony she’s gonna be ok.” Natasha nodded. 

“He’s right. I’d be more concerned with what the Hydra agents are being subjected to right now.” Tony’s eyebrow climbed higher as the jet took off. 

“What do you mean?” Clint smiled slightly. 

“Natasha and I had her run a couple of power free simulations where someone she cared about was taken. She left the bad guys breathing but none of them were ever going to fully recover.” Tony looked at Natasha. 

“She’s got a fondness for kneecaps.” Was all the assassin would say. Tony frowned at them but turned his attention back to the drone he’d sent on ahead. 

 

Piper dropped to the floor and pulled the gun at her side firing six shots in quick succession. Every person in the room dropped clutching their legs. She’d done pretty well for having not touched a gun for a few months. She made her way around the room quickly, knocking each agent out with a quick efficiency borne not of desperation but long honed skill. She stopped at the last man, kicking his gun away from him as he reached for it. 

“Harry Osborn, where is he.” It was a question but it didn’t sound like on. Instead it sounded like a demand. The man didn’t speak for a minute so Piper quickly reloaded and shot him in the other kneecap. 

“The elbows are next. Where is Harry Osborn.” He remained silent. So she followed through on her threat, shooting a hole in his arm as he screamed. She had to hurry all this noise was going to draw someone’s attention soon. The man whimpered as she stepped down on his ruined knee. 

“Tell me now. Or I put one between your eyes.” That was an empty threat, she wouldn’t kill. None of the people she’d shot would die from their injuries but it was doubtful any of them would walk again. She was never like this as Spidergirl, she could afford to be more careful as Spidergirl, but not as Piper. Piper was exposed like a nerve, everything she did was under scrutiny. But right at that moment desperation tinted her threat with something that sounded like truth. The man flinched slightly as she stepped down a bit harder. 

“Third floor! Third floor, interrogation cells on the other side of the compound!” She nodded and flipped the gun in her hand and brought the butt of the gun down onto the mans forehead. She nodded as he slumped to the floor and she pulled herself back up into the vents. 

 

Harry sat curled up on the floor of the room. They’d left him alone since they’d made the ransom video, he had tried to fight back but they’d threatened to drag Piper in and slit her throat in front of him if he didn’t cooperate. He couldn’t let them hurt her and if that meant he had to sit here quietly then that’s what he was going to do. But he couldn’t help the feeling of dread that curled in his stomach at the whole situation. His head shot up as a scuffle sounded outside. He flinched as he heard gunshots in the hall. There was silence for a moment then the door creaked open. Nothing prepared him for who stepped into the room. 

It was Piper, still in her jeans and t shirt, though she looked distinctly more dusty than she had before. Her wrists were bright red, the skin irritated, and there was blood splattered on her shirt and jeans, there was even some on her shoe. He stared at her for a moment before she ran into the room and unlocked his chains with a key she must have taken from someone outside. 

“Piper… How?” She shook her head at him, reloading the gun at her side. 

“Later, we’re not out yet.” She grabbed his hand in her left one and dragged him along behind her as alarms began to blare.


	23. Detours

Piper yanked Harry into a supply closet as a group of heavily armed men marched past the hallway they were in. She handed him the gun.

“You can handle that right?” Harry nodded. Norman hadn’t thought it was appropriate for him to know how to handle firearms but his favorite bodyguard, Frank, had taught him behind Norman’s back. He’d said it was better safe than sorry. Piper nodded.

“That’s the last clip I’ve got, so make them count.” Harry nodded. 

“What about you?” Piper pulled a bowie knife out of the belt, twirling it between her fingers like she’d been doing it her whole life. He raised an eyebrow at her, they were pressed close in the closet, both barely daring to speak above a whisper. She smiled slightly, it should have looked disturbing against the blood on her face but it didn’t. 

“Auntie Tasha and Uncle Clint may have taught me a few tricks.” Harry nodded and they waited for a moment. Piper seemed to be thinking, then she nodded and cracked the door open. Harry followed her down the hallway. 

 

Tony scanned the ground below them and nodded. 

“Seems like Iron Fist’s friend was right. There’s a structure about seven feet down. Looks to be about six floors deep. One access point. And a whole lot of heat signatures. I’m counting at least one hundred fifty plus and no real way to tell which is the kids.” Natasha shook her head. 

“Not true. Piper’s an enhanced, she runs hotter than the average human. Also, if she’s bleed at all there will be a radiation trail, minor but still enough to follow.” Tony stared at Natasha then around at the others none of whom looked surprised. 

“Ok raise your hands if you knew that Piper was Spidergirl before SHEILD fell.” Every hand in the Quinjet was hesitantly raised. Tony rolled his eyes. “You know what doesn’t matter right now. JARVIS, scan with Romanov’s parameters. Please.” The AI complied and Tony swore to himself as a dim trail lit up through several floors of the structure. It was moving. 

“Looks like she’s on level six. Avengers, let’s go get our kid back.” The others smiled at Tony’s slip and the Quinjet landed on the grass outside the small shed that led into the building. 

 

Harry was a bit confused, mostly as to why they were heading further into the structure instead of up and out. Piper was too focused on the task at hand as she rounded a corner, knife at the ready. She pounced, slashing with the knife, forcing the gun out of the hands of an unsuspecting Hydra agent. He swore and she kicked him in the throat. He went down with a choked off scream. Piper snatched up his gun and shouldered open the door he’d been in front of. She smiled as she found exactly what she’d been hoping for. 

The room was small, just a few old computer banks on older looking desks. But it was progress. Piper hurried forwards and pulled open a few drawers before fishing out a USB drive. She grinned and plugged it in. 

“What are you doing?” Piper grinned at Harry. 

“Making the best of a worst situation.” Her fingers flew across the keyboard. Harry honestly had no idea what she was doing but the alarm was still blaring. Then suddenly the whole structure shook. Piper typed faster. 

 

Cap made it down the stairs first. He leapt down them quickly, using the railing, much like Piper did. He didn’t quite have her immaculate sense of balance though and had to roll at the bottom of the stairs. His com buzzed to life. 

“Cap, they should be down the hall, third door on your left.” He nodded at Tony’s words and rushed down the hall. There were only a few men down here, all unconscious, most with knife wounds, though a few of them had been shot. Whoever had been doing the shooting wasn’t all that great at it, only clipping them in the side or arm. But the knife wounds were all expertly placed, if he didn’t know better he’d say they ran into Clint, but the archer was still topside with Thor making sure that none of the Hydra agents escaped. He had a feeling that any who tried weren’t going to be alive for questioning. 

He stepped up to the door Tony had described and heard the click of a safety being released, and the clicking of fingers across a keyboard. He cleared his throat.

“Piper? You in there?” There was a pause then the door was opened and Harry Osborn stared at him before letting out a shaking breath. He saw Piper over the boys shoulder, standing at the computer, her fingers still flying over the keyboard. He hissed slightly. She looked a little worse for the wear. There was a bright purple bruise trying to swallow her eye on her right cheek. Her lip was split and there was a small cut across her cheekbone. Steve stepped into the room, laying a hand on Harry’s shoulder. 

“We need to go.” Piper held up a hand. 

“In a minute.” Steve raised an eyebrow at her. 

“What do you mean in a minute?” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“I mean exactly what I said. I need a minute.” Steve’s com crackled back to life. 

“We’ve got a battalion headed your way Rodgers! Get the kids out of there.” Steve tapped his com. 

“Piper says she needs a minute.” Tony went silent for a moment. 

“Put her on your com. Now.” Steve paused for a moment but removed his com from his ear and held it out to Piper. She rolled her eyes but slipped it into her ear one handed, the other hand continuing to race across the keyboard. 

“Piper you follow Cap out of this hell hole now.” Piper shook her head. 

“I need a few more minutes. I found this base’s main computer. Seriously low tech, I’m ripping everything I can get onto a USB. I’m almost done.” Tony frowned slightly blasting another of the agents as he made his way towards the battalion heading towards his daughter. 

“No.” But Natasha cut across him. 

“She’s brilliant Tony. This is the best lead we’ve had on Hydra since SHEILD fell, we need to give her that minute.” Tony was about to protest but Clint cut him off. 

“Nat’s right. She’s maybe a step down from you in the brains department. Let her do this while we take care of the last of them.” Tony rolled his eyes. 

“JARVIS. How many more of these bastards do we have?” JARVIS did a quick scan. 

‘The only remaining able bodied Hydra agents are the twenty currently converging on Miss Parker’s location.’ Tony nodded then frowned. 

“Wait able bodied. What do you mean J?” 

‘There are currently twelve downed agents along Miss Parker’s original course through the structure. Four are simply unconscious, and eight are wounded.’ Tony nodded as he flew down the stairwell. He raced into the hallway, blasting agents left and right. He was met halfway down the hall by Steve, sans coms who had taken out the other ten agents, very few of whom were still breathing. He followed his teammate down the hall into the room where Piper was still behind the desk. She grinned in triumph and snatched up the USB, slipping it into the pocket of her jeans. 

“Got it.” Tony nodded. 

“Great, lets get the hell out of here!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a little note here. I may be going off line for a week or so after Monday. Surgery sucks... But there will be more to come that much I promise.


	24. Information

They reached the Quinjet without incident, Thor pulled Piper into a crushing hug. She was only shaking slightly, Natasha recognized her calm for what it was though and guided both of the teens into the jet where Bruce fussed. He had both of them wrapped in blankets before the other Avengers had even boarded the jet. Harry fell into a fitfull sleep on the way back to New York as Tony made the calls to let the world know that both teen were safe and it was ok for the FBI and CIA to move in on the mostly trashed base. Piper however stayed awake curled up in the corner, near Harry. Natasha quietly stepped over to her. 

“Pauchok.” Piper looked up at her, there were tears in her big blue eyes. Natasha couldn’t tell if they were tears of relief or fear. She sat down next to the teen and curled around her, Piper leaning into her as the redhead gently ran her fingers through her short brown hair. She let out a quiet sob as Tony glanced over at them, still on the phone, this time with Piper’s team. 

“Yeah, we got her, both of them. They’re safe.” He sighed and nodded. “Me too.” He laid his hand on Piper’s back. He was still wearing the Iron Man armor so it was a little heavier than he’d meant it to be, but she smiled at him slightly through her tears. She sniffled as Natasha continued to run her fingers through her hair. It took a few minutes but she spoke quietly. 

“I’ve never had to actually shoot somebody before.” The whole Quinjet was quiet as it autopiloted them back to the tower. Piper took a deep breath and continued, staring down at her hands. “I’ve never hurt somebody like that before. I know I had to… but…” She sniffled again as Natasha pulled her closer. None of the adults tried to silence her or tell her she’d done anything wrong or even right. She glanced over at Harry who was still asleep, twitching slightly under his blanket. “It was so different to when I’m out being Spidey.” She swiped her hand across her face and flinched slightly. Tears continued to slip down her face. Tony stepped out of the armor and wrapped his arms around his daughter. 

“You were so brave out there, Pipes. You held it together so well.” She sobbed into his chest. 

“I couldn’t let them hurt Harry.” Tony nodded as she cried. He felt tears begin to slip down his face as he knelt down in front of his daughter so he could hug her closer. 

“I know sweetheart. I know.” 

 

The whole of New York was watching the news with bated breath. It was late, nearing ten o’clock at night but New York never slept anyway, let alone when two of the most well known residents were taken right out of a coffee shop. Dr. Connors fiddled with some papers as the news replayed the footage of the abduction for the fifth time that day. The anchor nodded as someone handed him a new sheet of paper.

“We’ve just received word that the Avengers have discovered a buried Hydra base under the Petersburg State Forest Preserve. Our source at Stark Industries has confirmed that the two teen have been rescued, that’s right the Avengers have come through again. Harry Osborn and Piper Parker-Stark are both alive and well.” The anchor was still speaking but Dr. Connors couldn’t hear him over the cheers that filled the room. Everyone was celebrating. Abe was jumping up and down shouting about how the Avengers were the best and he’d never doubted it for a minute. Glen was grinning from ear to ear. The other scientists were all either heading home or down to the recreation level. Abe bounced and Dr. Connors smiled at his interns. 

“This has been quite the day. How about you two head home? And don’t worry about coming in tomorrow. I think I can handle it on my own for a day.” Abe thanked him and headed out but Glen paused. 

“Do you mind if I come by tomorrow anyway? I’d still like to help.” Dr. Connors nodded. 

“If you want to sure. But I might be coming in late tomorrow so don’t worry about being early.” Glen grinned and nodded as he took off his lab coat. Placing it in the laundry chute on his way out of the lab he smiled to himself. She was ok. He grinned as he made his way back home. 

 

Tony twirled the USB his daughter had stolen from Hydra between his fingers. She was asleep on the couch behind him surrounded by the people she loved. Ava and Mary Jane were curled up next to her on the couch. Harry was leaning against Piper’s legs from his spot on the mattress Steve had dragged into the room on the teens insistence. Danny was next to him, Ava’s hand resting gently in his hair. Sam was on his other side, snoring lightly as Luke let out a much deeper snore from beside the small Latino. Eddie was being held in the hospital overnight along with everyone else who’d been affected by the gas released into the coffee shop. Tony made a mental note to pay off the kids medical bill in the morning.

Natasha was sitting in the loveseat nearby, watching over the teens, as the credits for Frozen rolled by. Piper and Harry had been rushed to medical after the Quinjet had arrived. The Oscorp board of directors had called Tony and he’d assured them that Harry was alive and well, the threat well taken care of. The boy’s bodyguard Frank had called him too, just to check on the kid. Apparently Harry had given him the slip before heading over to the coffee shop this morning. He assured Tony that it wouldn’t be happening again. Tony assured him in turn that he wouldn’t have been able to stop Hydra anyway. Tony had called Mary Jane to the tower shortly after, claiming that the other teens had arrived shortly after her when Piper’s team had all piled into the med bay. 

Neither teen had serious wounds. Piper had been nocked around a little and both had irritated wrists from the cuffs Hydra had used on them but there would be no permanent physical damage, so they had all piled into the living room instead as it was much more comfortable than the med bay. Piper and Harry hadn’t even made it through the opening credits before falling asleep. The other teens had fared better, making to all the way to Anna reaching Elsa’s ice castle before drifting off one by one. 

The Avengers had all drifted away one by one save for himself and Natasha. Clint had gotten a call and dragged Steve off with him when it was over. Tony could only guess that the two were heading off to play good cop bad cop with the remaining living Hydra agents. He honestly hoped they both decided to play bad cop but it really wasn’t in Steve’s nature. Thor had excused himself shortly after Piper had fallen asleep to head off to the gym. He had some aggression to work out. Surprisingly Bruce had joined him. Natasha however hadn’t moved from her spot on the loveseat since the teens had taken over the couch. Tony sighed and grabbed Piper’s camera from the top shelf. She didn’t use it often, only on birthdays and holidays to document things she found cute or amusing. He snapped a photo of the large pile of cuddling teens before stepping into the hall to retrieve a few blankets. 

He carefully draped one of the blankets across the girls on the couch and the other two over the boys. Harry stirred as he did so, blinking wearily up at Tony. Tony smiled slightly. 

“Go back to sleep Harry.” Harry nodded, cuddling further under the blanket.

“Thanks dad.” He said sleepily before drifting back off. Tony stepped back slightly before he let a small smile grace his face. 

“I don’t even care that he just called me his dad. That was too cute. JARVIS save the last few minutes of footage please.” The AI complied as Natasha nodded from her spot on the loveseat. 

“I honestly doubt that Norman Osborn has ever done anything like that for his son.” Tony nodded, looking sadly down at the boy in the middle of the pile of teens. 

“JARVIS, let me know when it looks like they’re gonna wake up. I have some digging to do.” He said tossing the USB into the air and catching it as he turned away from the teens who had taken over his living room. Natasha would keep them safe she had already essentially claimed them as hers anyway.

 

Baron Strucker was livid. One teenager had managed to get into Hydra’s system and rip a great deal of information that was now in the hands of the Avengers. And the worst bit was that wasn’t all she’d done. She’d implanted a virus in the system that was still data mining them. His best scientist were currently on the task of stopping the virus but there was no telling how much damage had already been done. He sighed deeply to himself as one of his lieutenants stepped up to him. 

“Herr Strucker, should we begin to make a new plan to take the girl?” Strucker shook his head. 

“No. Stark’s daughter is too dangerous to be allowed on Hydra property alive.” The man nodded. 

“Should we order a hit on her?” Strucker shook his head. 

“No you fool. That would draw the Avengers down on us even faster, we aren’t ready. We’ll need the twins to beat them. We’ll feed them some little fish, draw them as far from Sokovia as we can for the moment. If the twins survive the serum and their training we will be able to defeat the Avengers without needing to use the girl.” The lieutenant nodded and saluted Strucker before heading off back the way he had come. One of the scientists approached him. 

“Herr Strucker, we have managed to disable the virus but quite a bit of information was already stolen, including what we’d been mining from Oscorp, everything we had on Octavius’s research and possible location is gone sir.” Strucker sighed. He could feel a headache building behind his eyes. He shook his head. 

“Fine, let the Avengers take down Octavius, we had no guarantee he would work for us in the first place. It will keep them occupied for a time.” The scientist scurried away as Strucker stepped off to find some ibuprofen, it had been a very long day.


	25. The Next Step

Harry and MJ stayed the night at the Tower, the teens not stirring until around noon the next day. They all shared a late breakfast in the kitchen, Sam Wilson, who had stuck around after the mission, he’d been on cleanup detail with Thor and Clint, made them breakfast. He was actually a great cook, and made sure to include a vegetarian option for Danny. He leaned closer to Steve as the teens joked and spoke under his breath as Piper laughed.

“I get it now.” Steve nodded at him. Sam had never actually met Piper before, but now he could see it, why every single Avenger had been wound tighter than a spring. She was bright, she had an innocence in her eyes that didn’t quite match up with what he’d seen at the Hydra base. He’d stuck around to help out the CIA and FBI, it hadn’t seemed right to him to join the family on the Quinjet. Because that’s what they were, at least from what he’d seen. She might be Tony’s kid legally but all of the Avengers would lay down their lives for this girl. 

“I knew you would.” Sam rolled his eyes and elbowed him slightly. He was still relatively new to this whole superhero thing but he knew teasing when he heard it. He turned back to his griddle as Tony stepped into the room. He took a deep sniff and blinked. 

“It smells fantastic in here.” Sam grinned and waved from the griddle. Tony turned to Steve.

“It’s official, I’m giving him a room on your level. He needs to stay more often.” Sam laughed slightly. 

“Been a bit busy pulling some strings for Cap here on a case he’s working.” Steve went slightly stiff, his expression falling into a melancholy one as Piper glanced over at them. She frowned as she speared another bite of pancake onto her fork. Tony patted Steve on the shoulder. 

“You’ll find him Steve.” Steve nodded as Tony stepped over to Sam holding out a plate for one of the omelets Sam was currently making. Sam glanced at the billionaire and shrugged as he loaded his plate. Tony scooted in between Piper and Ava who let him with a slight smile. He grinned at his daughter. 

“You, my small child, are absolutely brilliant!” Piper grinned slightly. The bruising on her face, which should be mostly healed by now, hidden under a dressing Bruce had put there last night. 

“You found the virus.” Tony nodded. 

“I found the virus and it’s a piece of genius! Took Hydra half the night to clear it from their systems! We have so much information now, seriously so much I have no idea where we’re gonna start!” Piper grinned into her glass of orange juice. Harry’s new Stark Phone, which he was going to have to hide from the world in favor of the O9 phone, buzzed and he glanced down at the number. It was his bodyguard. He stepped aside to answer it. MJ excused herself to head to the restroom and Tony leaned in, lowering his voice. 

“There’s also some information I think the five of you might find very interesting but we’ll deal with that after our guests have left.” He took a bite of his omelet and sighed looking at Falcon who was still standing across the room at the griddle, though he was working on another batch of pancakes at Steve’s request. 

“Sam Wilson, can I put you on payroll? Seriously just so you can come over and make breakfast.” Steve laughed at Tony as Sam rolled his eyes. 

“Hey ten of the Hydra agents yesterday would have gotten away if it wasn’t for Sam.” Sam nodded as he slid some fluffy pancakes onto Steve’s plate. 

“Plus I also do therapy, not just pancakes.” Tony stared at him then at Steve. 

“Where did you pick up this wonderful human being?” Sam snorted. 

“The VA in Washington.” Sam nodded.

“Which won’t take me back since I am technically active duty again.” Tony snorted. 

“That’s it I’m putting you on the payroll. We all need someone who can talk us down from the bad times, and Steve found us a trained professional. Besides all the other Avengers are on the payroll.” Sam raised an eyebrow.

“So wait I’m officially an Avenger?” Tony waved his hand in the vague direction of Sam’s shoulders as he chewed. 

“It’s official. Welcome to the team.” He said through a mouthful of eggs and peppers. Piper laughed as Harry came back into the room. 

“That was Frank. He’s coming to pick me up in about twenty minutes, they’ve doubled security on the penthouse and he’s bringing dad’s old security team too. At least for the time being.” Piper pulled Harry into a hug, Tony hesitated then patted him on the shoulder. He reached into his pocket and handed Harry a watch. Harry stared at him, confused. 

“It’s partially to replace the one Hydra took, but if you press both of these buttons at once, it sends a distress signal to the NYPD and the Avengers.” Harry blinked at him as Piper practically tackled her father. Tony patted Piper on the shoulder. 

“Hey, don’t get sappy on me now. It’s for your protection. Mr. Rand Industries over there has one too. And I’m working on Piper’s. Kids of billionaire’s tend to be targets. I know how that feels, it’s never fun. And if I can help I will. Besides Piper likes you so I better make sure you stay alright, no one wants to incur her wrath after what we saw yesterday.” Piper rolled her eyes, her hands shaking slightly. Tony pulled her back into a hug, quietly apologizing into her hair as Harry nodded. 

“Thank you Mr. Stark.” Tony nodded over his daughter’s shoulder. She pulled away and hugged Harry. She and Steve escorted him down to the garage where Frank was picking him up. MJ joined them, Harry offering to drop her off at home. He wasn’t too keen to get back to his empty penthouse but he knew Piper needed time alone with her family. He pulled Piper close as he wished with all his heart that he’d arrive home to find his father waiting for him, even though he knew he wouldn’t. 

 

Once Piper and Steve arrived back on the family level Tony got serious. He cleared his throat and sipped his coffee as the enhanced teens around him continued to dig into the food in front of them. It was nice to know he could keep so many enhanced individuals healthy just by making sure there was enough food around for them. Steve’s friend Sam seemed a bit surprised by all the food the teens in front of him were able to pack away. Tony sighed and ran a hand through his hair. 

“Ok so we have a good news bad news situation here.” Piper raised an eyebrow. 

“The good news is that my kid is a genius and her virus data mined Hydra for at least four hours, so we have our choice of which base we want to go after next. Also it mucked up everything it could get its hands on, even if it didn’t have time to rip it out. So they’ll have a hell of a time figuring out what we have and what we don’t.” Piper nodded, she already knew this. Sam held up a hand from where he was standing beside the sink where he’d just placed the griddle. 

“Um… Question that will probably sound a bit silly once I know the answer but how come you’re sharing this with teenagers. I mean Piper I get, she’s your kid but…” He trailed off as Tony snorted. 

“You didn’t tell him?” The mechanic directed this question at Steve who shrugged. Tony turned back to Sam. 

“I know you’re not from New York but you’ve heard of the new team wandering around since before SHEILD fell?” Sam nodded slightly.

“Spidergirl’s team, the Ultimates right? Oh!” It dawned on him as he did a quick headcount. “So wait which one is which, I mean the boys are pretty easy to tell but both girls are relatively the same height and wear full suits.” Piper glanced at Tony who shrugged. She raised her hand.

“Spidergirl.” Ava waved next to Tony. 

“White Tiger.” Sam nodded slightly.

“You know that actually makes a bit of sense, so are they all yours?” He asked Tony. The kids shook their heads but Tony nodded. 

“Yes they’re mine and nobody messes with my kids.” Giggles passed around the table as Tony stared down Steve as if challenging him to question his words. The soldier simply leaned forwards and snagged another sausage off the table. 

“On that note, I found something else in the files.” Piper chewed thoughtfully as Tony spoke. “It looks like Hydra was data mining Oscorp, the shall we say undocumented part of the company.” Piper’s eyes darkened slightly.

“Octavius.” It wasn’t a question but Tony nodded anyway.

“Seems like it. So I had a thought at about three am. The Avengers can’t be everywhere at once. It makes logistical sense, also tactically if we leave Octavius to someone who’s dealt with him before.” Piper’s eyes went wide as she processed what he’d said.

“You’re gonna let us go after him.” Tony nodded sipping his coffee. Piper stared at her father. Kraven had so far been the only real villain he’d let the team go after since discovering the truth, mostly because he hadn’t found out what was going on after it had already happened. The team stared at them. Tony sighed. 

“I’m not happy about it, but it makes sense. You five have the most experience dealing with Octavius, Piper you’ve been reading his papers since you found out he was alive. You know the most about him out of all of us. It only makes sense that you call the shots on this.” He held up his hand as Piper opened her mouth to speak. 

“Hush for a minute, I have conditions. Nothing overseas, unless I ok it. If you go over my head and steal a Quinjet you’re grounded. Each of you is getting a signal, if things get too hairy, if someone gets shot, if one of you is injured to the point where you can’t get up, if one of you gets kidnapped again, you call. You be as safe as possible out there.” He was cut off as Piper tackle hugged him again. He wrapped his arms around his daughter and spoke again. “And if you find anything else about your parents come to me, you can always talk to me.” Piper swiped at her eyes and nodded. 

“Thanks dad.” He grinned and ruffled her hair.


	26. After A Few Weeks

Glen was slightly disappointed when Piper didn’t show up in the lab the next day. He had the weekend off, so he had no way of knowing if she was back in the labs or not. He was running a bit early on Monday, his bus had been earlier than he’d been expecting. But he hadn’t had time to grab coffee at home so he stopped by the coffee bar on the recreation level of Stark Tower. He placed his order and showed his ID to the pink haired barista and she smiled at him. Someone stepped up behind him and he stepped aside so they could place their order too. He caught sight of a shock of deep brown hair against pale skin and turned as Piper smiled at the barista who grinned at her. 

“Mr. Barton stole the carafe again?” Piper nodded giving the barista her best set of puppy dog eyes. The pink haired woman laughed. 

“You want your usual then?” Piper nodded, pushing her messy hair out of her face. There was a small bandage on her cheek that made Glen flinch slightly. She seemed to have noticed the small movement out of the corner of her eye though. She glanced over and smiled at Glen before turning back to the barista.

“Thanks Susan. You are a literal lifesaver.” The barista grinned and set to work on Piper’s order as her coworker finished up Glen’s. It was just a regular americano with a little bit of room for cream and sugar. Glen raised an eyebrow as he saw Susan put four pumps of chocolate into a cup before adding any coffee. She followed the coffee with another shot of chocolate and a few of caramel before adding some milk and frothing the whole thing. Piper took the cup she was handed which was twice the size of the small Glen had ordered and sipped it before sighing loudly. 

“Perfect, thank you Susan, you are an angel.” Susan waved Piper off. The brunette stepped up to Glen with a grin as she checked her watch. 

“You don’t have to be in the lab for another half an hour, care to sit with me for a bit?” Glen nodded.

“Sure, sounds fun.” They made their way over to one of the many empty tables. Glen glanced at the cup in Piper’s hand. “That can not be healthy, I think I can feel my teeth rotting from here.” Piper snorted a laugh as she took another sip of her drink. She glanced around as she sat down, there was almost no one else in the area and none of the people who were here were close enough to hear anything she said. 

“I would blame it on the enhanced metabolism but I drank my coffee like this before that so… That’s just me I guess.” Glen laughed slightly. 

“I’m not sure any other human being on the planet would call that sugar bomb coffee.” Piper snorted again. 

“You sound just like Clint.” Glen grinned sipping his own coffee. He pulled a face as he realized he’d forgotten to add any sugar or cream. Piper laughed as he stood up and quickly doctored his coffee, adding just two spoonful’s of sugar and a splash of cream. He sat back down as Piper managed to reign in her giggles. 

“Your face was priceless. Seriously. That was beautiful.” Glen stuck out his tongue at her and she grinned. He fidgeted slightly it was still odd sitting across from, not only Tony Starks daughter, but Spidergirl. But she didn’t act like some high and mighty rich kid or like a righteous hero. She just acted like a person. He cleared his throat slightly. 

“So, are you ok?” Piper glanced up from her Stark Pad. Her eyes had gone slightly dark but she nodded.

“Yeah. I mean I’m ok. So the whole of New York knows huh?” Glen shrugged taking an awkward sip of his coffee. 

“Well yeah, I mean you’ve kind of become a public figure since the world found out you existed.” Piper nodded sipping her coffee. Glen frowned. “But I mean you’re completely alright?” He said gesturing vaguely to her cheek. Her hand ran across the bandage and she smiled slightly. 

“Oh yeah I’m fine. I heal fast.” Glen smiled slightly. 

“I’m glad you’re ok. Everyone was really worried when we heard what happened.” Piper blushed slightly her face turning a very rosy shade of pink. Glen couldn’t help but grin. 

“Yeah I’m ok.” They slipped into an easy conversation about the tests Glen was running on the simulations. The lizard idea seemed to be working out best. Piper glanced down at her Stark Pad and swore. 

“We’re late.” Glen checked his watch and his eyes went wide. The pair of them disposed of their empty cups and raced to the elevator. Both of them pulled on lab coats in the entryway and stepped in. Dr. Connors looked up and raised an eyebrow. 

“It’s completely my fault he’s late Doc. I had him trapped in a conversation about how to meld DNA sequences.” Glen nodded stepping over to the computer banks. 

“She actually had the most brilliant idea, about how to get around the problem we’ve been having with the peptide solution.” He pulled up the screen and stepped aside. Piper glanced at Dr. Connors who motioned her forwards. She began to type. In a few minutes she had a small formula sitting in the palm of her hand, she pulled the formula closer to the others, all the labs used the holographic tech Tony used in his personal lab. She handed the formula to Dr. Connors. 

“See what I’m trying to do?” He looked over the formula.

“Preempt the proteins?” Piper shook her head. 

“No, preempt the immune response. The immune system is most of what’s blocking the merging of the DNA.” Dr. Connors nodded slightly and the four of them set to work. Piper hovered at the edge of the work station, sitting on a chair working on her Stark Pad as the simulations ran with the newly added formula. She was tapping away as the rest of them went over different variations of her formula. Dr. Connors approached her at the end of the day. 

“Glen and Abe are heading home for the day but I was wondering if you’d be willing to lend a hand in a more official capacity on this project.” Piper nodded. 

“Yes, but I have a favor to ask of you in return.” Dr. Connors raised an eyebrow at her and she handed him the Stark Pad she’d been using all day. On it was a map of New York. Several places on the map were dotted red. 

“We have some leads on Octavius. I’m not gonna be able to process everything we dig up from it. I’m gonna need your help.” Dr. Connors nodded. 

“Of course.” Piper smiled. 

 

Three weeks passed, Piper and her team raided three of Doc Oc’s labs, all of them inactive and untouched for at least four months if not longer. Piper was starting to believe that Octavius had died in the fire started in his lab after he’d turned Norman Osborn into the Goblin. She almost didn’t feel bad about it but to make a cure for Norman, without a sample of his blood, they would have to know what the good doctor had done to him, to the mixture of Venom, Piper’s blood and the sample of spinal fluid he’d taken from her. Dr. Connors kept his promise to help Piper go through all of the tech and formula’s they’d found. Piper kept her promise and helped with what the other scientists were starting to call the Lizard formula, mostly because it was easier than saying human-lizard gene splicing formula. They were still on the simulation stage but they’d had more and more success lately. 

Since they weren’t getting anywhere finding anyone who could answer their questions on where Oc might be if he was alive Piper decided to try something different. Instead of heading directly to the next lab she set up surveillance equipment outside. Another week passed before something happened. 

Piper laughed as she walked Glen out of the building. 

“That is hilarious. Abe honestly couldn’t just ask me to get Auntie Tasha’s autograph?” Glen shrugged. 

“You intimidate him.” Piper snorted. 

“He’s the only one on the planet I intimidate.” Glen shook his head. 

“I’m sure that’s not true.” They paused at the doors. Piper brushed her hair behind her ear. Glen fidgeted slightly then smiled. 

“Um… do you like parmesan chicken?” Piper raised an eyebrow. Glen cleared his throat. “My… my mom has been wanting to meet the girl I keep talking about for a while. She’s making parmesan chicken this Thursday for dinner. Would you like to come to dinner?” Piper blushed that pretty rosy pink. There had been roumors running around Stark Industries for three weeks that Piper and Glen were dating, they had taken to sharing coffee together most days and lunch at least once a week unless Piper was busy with Spidergirl. But neither of them had talked about it yet. Even Dr. Connors left them mostly to their own devices these days. She cleared her throat as her watch began to beep. 

“I would like that.” Glen grinned and pulled out his phone, texting Piper his address. 

“See you tomorrow?” She nodded and he grinned as he left. Piper grinned as she tapped her watch stepping into the private elevator. 

“Hello?” Piper asked looking down at her watch. 

“Spidey! We have movement at the warehouse lab! Get over here!” Piper nodded and raced out of the elevator, pulling off her shirt as she went. Her costume was revealed as she tossed her jeans aside and pulled her mask out of her pocket. In moments Spidergirl was swinging across New York, whooping as she went.


	27. Fans

Piper reached the warehouse in under five minutes. It was dark, someone had taken out the powerlines nearby, cutting off power to the entire block. Piper tapped her watch, summoning JARVIS. The AI would send out a tip about the downed powerlines. Piper slipped into the warehouse through one of the upper windows. She blinked slightly as her night vision slipped into place. She had installed several modes into the lenses of her mask, night vision had been quite useful against Taskmaster. Right now the green filtered light showed her the figures of her team racing around the warehouse. From the outside one would think that it was just a regular stopping off point for cargo coming into to harbor. But inside the warehouse, among the crates, was a towering structure tat reached from ceiling to floor. Piper had thought about setting the trap in a different location when the drone she’d sent into the warehouse has spotted that. It was too interesting but that meant that someone would be coming back for it. It seemed that Piper had been right as Ava was thrown across the warehouse landing hard on her back.

“Anybody got eyes on the target?” Piper asked through the coms as she swung through the rafters towards the source of the fight. 

“I got him!” Luke called out before swearing and being thrown through a nearby crate. Danny was easy to find by the glow of his fist. 

“I don’t believe it, he survived!” Danny was the next one down, flung after Luke. Piper’s heart dropped and she switched off the night vision. 

“Nova, light us up!” A bright flash of light filled the warehouse and Piper dropped to the floor as a hoarse cry sounded from the figure in front of her. He was thinner than he had been, his hair longer, more straggily. His skin was grey and a few spots of it were covered in burn scars. One of his arm’s was pulling off a pair of nightvision goggles he’d been wearing, the other held a briefcase. Piper snapped out a web and snagged the briefcase from the still swearing figure. Doctor Otto Octavius snarled at her, blinking rapidly. 

“Gotta be careful about night vision, wear it in the wrong lighting and you’re likely to hurt your eyesight permanently.” Octavius snarled at her and lunged for the briefcase. She tossed it up to Nova.

“Keep away!” She shouted as somewhere behind her she heard Danny and Luke stirring. Octavius roared and smacked out at Nova. 

 

Flash Thompson liked to walk at night. He knew it probably wasn’t the best idea, New York was far from a safe place. But it was better than being at home. Anything was better than waiting for his mom to come home, never sure if she would. Listening to his dad shatter bottles of beer against the broken down cars that surrounded the old broken down gas station that was the only thing his father owned. It had been converted into something that could pass for a home. But it had never really felt like it. So instead of going home he walked. 

Tonight his feet had taken him down to the Hudson. It was almost pretty in the sunset, if you could ignore the smell. The harbor area never really smelled good, except in winter when the crisp smell of snow covered everything. But as the lights glittered over the Hudson he remembered why he loved this city. It had a beauty all its own. He smiled slightly as he stuffed his hands back in his Letterman jacket. He flinched at the sound of shattering glass nearby. Curiosity always got him in trouble but it never seemed to stop him being curious. He stepped around the corner and blinked at the warehouse in front of him. It didn’t look very different to those around it, but the lights from the windows and sounds of crashing from within spoke of a fight. One of the windows was broken. He had barely stepped forwards when another window was broken, this time by a figure clad in familiar red and blue, who seemed to be wrapped around something. She crashed into the pavement with a groan and lay still. Flash’s mind went a mile a minute but her team didn’t appear and whatever had thrown her through the window was getting closer. 

He swore as he raced forwards, glass crunching under his sneakers. He pulled her up as she groaned, she didn’t seem to be fully conscious. He caught the briefcase in his other hand as he dragged the unconscious hero into a dark alley. They had just slipped out of sight when a section of the wall of the warehouse fell in a plume of dust. The figure who stepped out was too tall, supported on long metal legs, gaunt and grey like a ghost he moved forwards. 

 

“Come out little spider! Coward!” He roared as a blast of light struck him from inside the warehouse. Flash wanted nothing more than to punch this guy in the face. Spidey wasn’t a coward, she was the best hero New York had. But as she stirred in his arms he knew that doing that was a very bad idea at least while Spidey was hurt. 

 

Piper had not been expecting a flash grenade from Doc Oc. Apparently he’d upgraded. Her senses were on overload as she went crashing out of the warehouse. Her ears were ringing and she couldn’t see or hear anything. Every part of her was screaming. She was vaguely aware of something pulling her off the cold pavement. It took a few minutes but she managed to blink her vision back into a somewhat clear blur. She was very confused about what she saw when she managed to see again. 

“That cant be right.” Flash jumped slightly as Spidey managed to stand up on her own. She rubbed her head where he guessed her ears were. The white lenses of her mask stared at him and he blushed slightly. He held out the briefcase as four other figures approached the alley. She took it still staring at him. Flash jumped again as Nova spoke. 

“Nice going Bug Breath, the Doc got away.” Spidey nodded. 

“Yeah I kinda figured. But thanks to this… guy, he didn’t get what he was after. What’s your name kid?” Flash blushed bright red to be addressed by his hero.

“Flash.” It was like he could hear her eyebrow climb up her forehead. He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well Eugene but everybody calls me Flash.” Nova snorted as White Tiger, Iron Fist and Powerman stepped back into the partially destroyed warehouse. Spidergirl sent a look at Nova who seemed to roll his eyes then shrugged and soared back to the warehouse. Spidergirl turned back to Flash.

“Why did you do that?” Flash stared at her for a minute trying to figure out what she meant. 

“Help you? Why did I help you?” She nodded. He snorted. “I mean you’ve done so much for this city, you’ve saved so many people. My girl Liz was there when that whole Taskmaster thing happened. She would have been in real trouble without you.” He chuckled a bit nervously. 

“Sorry I’m not normally like this, I just you’re the coolest. I’m your biggest fan.” Spidey nodded. 

“Well thanks.” She made to webswing away when Flash called out to her. 

“Um… Can I ask a favor?” There it was Piper thought, that was somewhat closer to the Flash she knew, never one to turn down opportunity. He continued before she could object. “Can I get a picture?” He asked almost shyly pulling out his phone. She almost snorted. The last thing she’d ever expected to hear directed at her was Flash Thompson asking to be in a picture with her. She paused. He had just saved her life. 

“One, and I don’t wanna see it all over Facebook, not a lot of people know I run this far into Manhattan, and I’d like to keep it that way.” Flash nodded quickly, beaming at her. If she hadn’t known him so well she’d say he was sincere, but somehow she couldn’t equate that with the boy who’d been shoving her into lockers for the past three years. But she stood next to him and let him beam at the camera, even allowing herself a small smile under her mask as he took the picture. Then she turned back to the warehouse. 

“You should probably get home kid, place is gonna be crawling with Damage Control soon. Don’t wanna get caught up in that mess.” He waved after her as she swung off to the warehouse. 

 

Flash made his was onto the subway a grin still plastered on his face, nothing at home could ruin the high he was running on right now. He’d stopped by a friends house and printed the picture, he wished he could have gotten her to sign it. Kobie had been beyond jealous that he’d gotten that close to the hero, that he’d actually been able to touch her but Flash was just happy he had been able to talk to her. She really was the coolest, he thought as he pinned the picture to his wall as his father snored in the other room, a half empty bottle of Jack in danger of falling out of his hand.


	28. New Results

Piper stepped into the warehouse, briefcase in hand. Her head was pounding. That flash grenade had done a number on her enhanced senses and the short conversation with Flash had done nothing to help her headache. She sighed as White Tiger made the call back to Avengers Tower. 

“Make sure they bring Doc Connors too.” Piper said, her own voice grating on her ears. She rubbed at her head and Luke stepped forwards.

“You alright Spidey?” Piper flinched slightly.

“Is the yelling necessary?” The others frowned at her. 

“No one is yelling Spider.” Danny stepped forwards lowering his voice as several of the Iron Legion, which was much farther along now though not completely finished, set up a perimeter on the building. “Are you alright?” Piper shook her head, rubbing her ears. 

“No. Octavius’s grenade did a number on my head. I should head home.” She handed the briefcase over to Ava and swung out of the warehouse. The light of the city were like miniature suns. Every car on the street was a blaring monster truck of noise. She landed hard on a familiar balcony as she jammed her hands over her ears trying to block out the noise. The window behind her slid open and a familiar voice called out to her. 

“Pip.. I mean, Spidey?” She turned and saw Glen leaning out of the window. She blinked at him for a minute before he stared out at the streets and motioned her inside. She slipped into the darker room and whimpered at the sounds from the street. 

 

Glen had not been expecting her to show up at his window. The dinner he’d invited her to wasn’t until the day after tomorrow, that and she was in full costume. Once she was inside his room she curled in on herself with a whimper, her hands jammed over her ears. He blinked at her for a second before it occurred to him what was happening. He rushed into the other room to find something.

 

Ava was a touch confused when Spidey left, still shaking slightly but she let it slide, she’d bother her later back at the tower where she couldn’t hide from her problems. The cleanup crew had arrived, a much smaller crew than normal as there was just a bit of glass to clean up. The science crew that showed up was a bit bigger though. Led by Doctor Connors there were seven scientists and technicians were taking apart what was left of Oc’s lab. Connors was going through the briefcase. He turned to Ava. 

“It is a very good thing Oc didn’t make off with these. It looks like he’s been working on attempting to create new formulas, something that would in theory turn out a super-powered army.” He showed Ava the vials in the briefcase, each labeled with a different animal. He glanced at one of the screens that was reading the data the other technicians were ripping off Oc’s computers. 

“It seems like he was trying to do something similar to what we’re doing at Stark Industries right now, but on a much bigger scale and not for the medical benefits. He was very much in the super solder game, but he wasn’t very successful at it.” Doc Connors scratched his chin looking thoughtful as the briefcase was loaded up into the Stark Industries Van along with everything else. Ava raised an eyebrow under her mask. 

“Everything alright Doc?” Doc Connors nodded. 

“Yes I was just wondering.” Danny, who was sitting on a crate watching the van being loaded, it was delicate equipment, he’d offered the technicians a hand but they’d assured him that they had it, raised an eyebrow.

“Wondering what?” Doctor Connors sighed. 

“I knew Otto a long time ago, back then I’d say he was one of the best men I knew. I know people change but, I have a hard time believing that the man I knew would do this.” He sighed running his hand through his hair. Luke shook his head. 

“Sorry to hear that Doc, but trust us, you haven’t seen him recently. Whatever man you knew, I don’t think he exists anymore.” Connors sighed and nodded. He climbed into the van’s passenger seat and they drove off. 

 

Piper jumped slightly as something slipped over her ears. Suddenly the sound around her dimmed to a much more tolerable level. She sighed her tense muscles relaxing slightly. She looked up and saw Glen holding a sleeping mask, meant to block out light, in one hand. He held it out to her and she shook her head slightly. His light was off, just the ambient light from the street coming in. There was a light rap at his door and he blanched slightly before racing over to the door. He only opened it a crack. 

 

Glen gave a grin to his dad who raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Everything alright? Your mom said you were looking for the noise canceling headphones.” Glen nodded. 

“Yeah I found them. Just a bit too much noise tonight. Gotta be well rested for the internship.” His dad nodded. 

“You want me to wake you up in the morning?” Glen grinned and nodded. 

“Sounds great thank you dad. Night!” Glen closed the door and leaned against it sighing. He had no idea what his dad would do if he found Spidergirl wearing noise canceling headphones over her mask. He wasn’t sure what to do as he knelt down in front of her. She was still slightly curled in on herself but not nearly as bad as she had been before. He was hesitant to reach out to her, but she made the first move, carefully lifting her mask above her nose and mouth. She sighed. 

“Sorry, this was not the plan.” Glen nodded, keeping his voice low, hers already was. 

“I bet, what happened?” Piper let out a breath and explained about the flash grenade. She’d dealt with them before but this one had been louder, right in her face and far too bright. 

“I haven’t lost control of my senses like this in years, not since I first got them. It’s a bit... overwhelming.” Glen nodded. 

“Kinda figured that. Are the headphones helping at all, it seems like you can hear me perfectly. Do you need something else?” Piper shook her head. 

“They bring it back to a normal level. Thank you.” She smiled at him, the lights of New York twinkling behind her. He smiled at her. Neither of them were sure who leaned forwards first but a moment later her lips were on his. It was warm and soft. She leaned forwards and he found his lap full of red and blue clad spider. He squeaked slightly as she cuddled closer. She laid her head on his shoulder. He made to run a hand through her hair but was met with her mask. She shook herself and skittered back slightly pink cheeks just barely visible beyond her mask. She stammered slightly. 

“I… I’m sorry… I just… I wasn’t thinking. I…” He shook his head. 

“No don’t apologize please! It… It was nice.” They both sat there staring at each other for a moment until Piper chuckled slightly. 

“Not how I had that planned.” Glen raised an eyebrow. 

“You had a plan for that?” The pink on her cheeks became more pronounced. 

“I mean… Not really… I was kind of hoping it would happen. But I mean my last relationship kind of ended in disaster so I wasn’t sure.” Glen cut her off with a short kiss.

“I think it went alright.” She let out a small giggle.


	29. Great Ideas... Or Not

Dr. Connors sat alone in his lab going over the information they’d ripped from Doc Oc’s warehouse lab. He tapped his pen on the table and spoke aloud to himself. 

“He was close, closer than we are. If we just… If I can just recreate his research, maybe we’ll have everything we need.” He delved deeper into the research and made a noise of triumph. “That’s it. The decay rate of the bond between the genes, that’s what we’ve been missing. We need a proper binding agent. What did he use?” 

Dr. Connors would admit it, he missed his friend, his college roommate. Being back at Stark Industries made him remember the times before, back when he’d worked with Piper’s father, and further back to his days at MIT with Otto planning ways to better the world in their dorm. These days he often wished that it could go back to the way it was. But as he scratched the stump of his shoulder he let out a frustrated sigh. Things could never be the same again. Richard Parker was dead, Oscorp was probably behind it. Otto was running around on four mechanical legs menacing teenage superheroes, apparently at the behest of Oscorp, or at least Norman Osborn. Then he spotted it. 

“Radiation. That’s the key. Low level radiation!” He set about working up the model. It could work. It had to work, he rubbed the stump that had been his arm. It had to work. 

 

Tony frowned down at the readings he was getting from the Bio Chem level. Low level radiation. He shook his head, heading down to the level. Any and all radiation experimentation had to be passed through the right channels before it could begin and it certainly wasn’t scheduled for nearly ten o’clock at night. He stepped off the elevator secure in the knowledge that he could have a suit here in seconds. The teens, save Piper, were upstairs, along with the rest of the team and there hadn’t been a break in alert. There was light at only one workstation. He relaxed slightly when he recognized Dr. Connors. 

“Hey Doc. What are you doing here this late?” Doctor Connors jumped slightly. When he looked up Tony spotted the screens behind the doctor. They were covered in formulas that Tony didn’t recognize.

“Mr. Stark, I didn’t realize you were still working this late.” Tony shook his head slightly.

“Normally I’m not but the sensors caught low level radiation on this level, unauthorized radiation.” Dr. Connors flushed slightly looking a bit embarrassed. 

“I’m sorry I wasn’t thinking. But I found out the key behind the formulas I’ve been working on. Otto had it worked out. The genes need something to bind them together. He used radiation, to great effect. If I’m right it’s what bonded Piper’s DNA to the DNA of the spider that bit her. I’d bet good money Otto at least had a hand in developing that spider.” Tony’s frown deepened. 

“Otto? You mean Octavius.” Dr. Connors nodded.

“Yes. Sorry. I just. I used to know him. He was a brilliant scientist. He still is if this is any evidence. A bit misguided sure but not without potential.” Tony cut him off. 

“Doc, you’re an alright guy and I know my kid trusts you but you’re talking about the man who has kidnapped her twice and tried to kill her on multiple occasions. Who made a bloodthirsty symbiote out of her blood, and a toxic formula that turned his former employer into a large green rage monster bent on killing my daughter. So I’m sorry but I’m not seeing this potential you’re talking about. Unless he has the same potential as a missile. Ready to explode at any minute.” There was silence for a few minutes. Tony sighed as the computer behind Dr. Connors beeped.

“Look Doc, it’s been a long couple of weeks. Go home. Get some sleep. Take tomorrow off. You can find a better bonding agent, I’m not gonna let you use radiation. Too many people have been hurt by Dr. Crazy’s ideas already. That’s final.” Tony turned around and walked away into the elevator. He needed a drink. He didn’t like chewing out his employees but Dr. Connors was seeming to lean further towards mad science by the day. Piper didn’t see it but Abe, Connor’s other intern had come to HR and mentioned that he was wary of going ahead with the mouse lab for the formula when it wasn’t anywhere near done. 

 

Dr. Connors swore to himself. He had been so close. A few more minutes and the experiment would have been done, he could have proved that Tony was wrong and that Otto’s ideas weren’t all crazy. Reluctantly he turned back to the computer to separate the data. But when he looked it over he blinked. The results had already come through. They were better than he could ever have imagined. Piper’s algorithm for bypassing the immune response had pushed Otto’s formula to mingling with the DNA flawlessly. Dr. Connors blinked at the vial in front of him. It was full of a dark green liquid. The experiment had been set to produce the formula only after a successful simulation, something they hadn’t managed yet. He looked over his shoulder at the elevator and grabbed the vial slipping it into the pocket of his lab coat. He pulled the completed file for the formula off the main server and onto his laptop instead of back onto the equipment the cleanup team had taken from the warehouse. He packed up his bag and left the building. Determination in his eyes. 

When he reached his apartment he made a b line to the small cage on the small end table near the wall. Inside was a small white mouse with three legs. He’d adopted it years ago, Freddie, he called him. He had lost his front left leg to a botched SHEILD experiment. Never had he imagined he would be in the same situation as his pet mouse. But he could fix that, with the formula in his pocket. He carefully removed the mouse from his cage and set him in a small box, one that he couldn’t really move around in. He took the formula out of his pocket and carefully injected most of it into the little mouse. It squeaked at him as he set down the injector and put him back into his cage. 

“It’s all on you now Freddie.” Dr. Connors settled down on his couch to watch the mouse. A few hours later he fell asleep, still facing the cage.


	30. On Her Side

Piper got home around midnight that night, slipping into her level with no difficulty. She grinned as she pulled off her mask and the top of her costume, switching it out for a pair of Captain America PJs. Ava had sniggered slightly at the amount of Avengers merch Piper owned but Piper just smiled. Most of it was manufactured by smaller subsidiary companies owned by Stark Industries after all. It was probably a good thing that they got a new shipment of shirts every two weeks or so. Piper was incredibly hard on her clothes. The other teens had their choice of Avengers merch too. Sam now had an autographed Captain America t-shirt framed on his wall. Piper had pointed out that the man himself was living five doors down from him and Sam had blushed bright red. 

She slipped into the elevator and headed down to the family level. She walked into the kitchen and was only mildly surprised to find her dad nursing a glass of whiskey. He rarely drank anymore, only when the stress became too much. 

“Dad? You ok?” She snagged a Powerade bottle out of the beverage fridge. He nodded slightly taking a sip of his whiskey. Piper downed her Powerade before snagging another and opening the other fridge. She pulled out a container of leftover Thai food and popped it in the microwave.

“Wanna talk about it?” He sighed. 

“Not really but you’re not gonna drop it are you.” Piper glanced at the decanter on the counter.

“Not when you broke out the Yamazaki for whatever problem this is. What is that eighty proof?” Tony shook his head slightly. 

“Eighty six proof. But at least you know your whiskey.” Piper scoffed.

“Of course I know my whiskey. I also know my wines and sake. I’m your kid. But that doesn’t answer my question.” She retrieved her food from the microwave and grabbed a fork. She plopped herself down on the couch and took a bite of the food looking up at her dad expectantly. Tony shook his head at her. 

“You’ve been taking staring lessons from Pepper, haven’t you?” Piper shrugged as she took another bite. 

“Maybe so.” Tony laughed lightly.

“I’m worried about Doc Connors.” Piper stiffened, all humor draining from her expression. 

“What’s wrong with Doc Connors?” Tony shook his head. 

“I hate to say it but I think he’s got a screw shaking loose. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a fantastically smart scientist but I think everything he’s been through may have been too much.” Piper shook her head. 

“What do you mean?” Tony took another sip of his whiskey. 

“He was conducting an unauthorized test with low level radiation tonight. Based off Octavius’s research.” Piper almost dropped her take out. She set it down on the coffee table. 

“No way! He knows Oc’s off his rocker.” Tony shook his head. 

“Does he? Because the way he was talking about him tonight you’d think he thought Oc was the next Einstein.” Piper shook her head. 

“I mean he used to know Oc, like personally. They were roommates in college.” Tony nodded. 

“And you used to know Norman Osborn. Would you say he was a fantastic person in hindsight, especially knowing what you know?” Piper shook her head. No she wouldn’t call Norman a good person, or even a decent father, but the benefit of hindsight gave her a view of him she hadn’t had before. She could tell the times when he’d been plotting against Spidergirl from the look in his eyes as he’d had in Oc’s lab. 

“Hindsight helps you see people as they are, and I think Doc Connors’ view of Oc is a little too rosy.” Piper sighed pulling up the work Doc Connors had been working on earlier that night. 

“I think he’s desperate for Oc to be right. We made some minor progress with the Lizard idea but we’re not making the progress we were hoping for… I… I think he wants things to go back to normal for him. The first step to that would be getting his arm back which is what we were hoping this formula would do.” Tony nodded. 

“Yeah but I’m worried about the lengths he’ll go to make that a reality.” Piper closed the screen she’d pulled up and sighed. 

“I’ll talk to him tomorrow.” Tony finished off his whiskey.

“I gave him tomorrow off.” Piper nodded. 

“I figured as much. I’ll head over to his house, I’ll take one of his interns with me. Maybe he can help me talk some sense into him.” Tony raised an eyebrow. 

“This wouldn’t be the son of the police chief who invited you to dinner would it? The one who figured out your secret ID.” Piper went bright red. Tony grinned. “I know everything that goes on in this tower, at least now I do. Now that you don’t have JARVIS on your side.” Piper rolled her eyes. 

“JARVIS is always on my side, right J?” The AI spoke up.

‘Of course Miss Parker.’ Piper grinned. 

“Alright, I’ll talk to Doc Connors tomorrow. And yes I’m gonna bring Glen. Doc knows he knows so it won’t be a problem.” Tony nodded and sighed. 

“Alright. Take your boy toy along to convince your mentor out of his crazy. Good luck with that by the way. Just promise me you’ll be careful.” Piper stood and nodded hugging her dad. She took her food with her as she walked towards the elevator. 

“He’s not my boy toy.” Tony rolled his eyes. 

“Sure.” Piper rolled her eyes as the door closed. She shot a text to Glen who agreed to meet her the next morning. He’d just gotten an email telling him not to come in tomorrow. Dr. Connors wasn’t going to be in so what was the point of having his interns come in. She smiled slightly at the heart emoji that accompanied the last text he sent her. Her face must have been bright red when she stepped off the elevator. She figured that out when she spotted Ava grinning at her like the cat that caught the canary. 

“Had a good night?” She asked gesturing to Piper’s neck. Piper blushed bright red as her hand slapped over a rapidly fading hickey her father hadn’t noticed. 

“Maybe.” Ava shook her head. 

“Is that a gift from this Glen I’ve heard so much about?” Piper’s darkening blush was all the answer Ava needed. 

“I better hear all about him later.” Piper grinned and nodded as she slipped into her room.


	31. Scales

Piper woke up early the next morning and dragged herself downstairs to grab some coffee before Clint could take it all. She took her motorcycle to Glen’s apartment building and took the elevator up to the apartment. She knocked on the door and was only slightly shocked when Captain George Stacy opened the door. He smiled at her. 

“Hello Miss Stark.” Piper grinned at him slightly. 

“Please call me Piper, Captain Stacy. It’s lovely to meet you.” She held out her hand and he took it and shook it. 

“Lovely to meet you too. Please come in.” Piper stepped into the house with her helmet under her arm. A woman who could only be Glen’s mother smiled at her from the kitchen, two younger boys were sitting at the table, one blonde like Glen and his mother, the other with dark hair like Captain Stacy. Both boys smiled at her. The older of the two stood up and shouted down the hall. 

“Glen! Your girlfriend is here!” Piper went bright red and Glen’s mother scolded the boy as a door down the hall banged open and Glen appeared in a pair of slightly worn jeans and a t-shirt a hoodie pulled over it. He grinned at Piper slightly as she blushed down at her feet. Captain Stacy chuckled. 

“So where are you two headed?” Piper toed at the carpet. 

“Breakfast, then the observatory, maybe the museum of natural history later.” Captain Stacy nodded. 

“Sounds like fun. Be safe. Home by ten Glen.” He nodded and the two teens exited the apartment both blushing bright red. Piper breathed a sigh of relief as she handed Glen her spare helmet. 

“So where are we really headed?” Glen asked as he hopped onto the bike after Piper who smiled slightly. 

“Well we are headed out to get coffee first, but after that we’re going to Doc Connors place. My dad thinks he’s trying to continue Doc Oc’s work. If he is we need to talk him out of it, if he’s not no problem.” Glen nodded. 

“Great, one question. Who’s Doc Oc?” 

 

Dr. Connors woke with a start, the sun shining in his face from the window of his apartment. He scrubbed at his face for a moment then a squeaking caught his attention. He glanced over at the cage and froze his eyes going wide. Freddie was scratching at the plastic wall of the cage with both front paws. Dr. Connors leapt to his feet racing over to the cage. He let out a short laugh. It had worked. That meant it could work on him, in theory. But Stark would never let him try it. He’d have to go around him then. He grabbed his bag that held his laptop and rushed out of his apartment hoping there wouldn’t be too many people from Damage Control left at Otto’s lab. He was in such a rush he didn’t notice the small green scales begin to sprout on Freddie’s newly grown arm.

 

“Ok, so Oc may have had a hand in your parents deaths but has definitely had a hand in very unethical human experimentation, all of which Oscorp is behind.” Piper nodded into her coffee. Glen shook his head. 

“Damn. Aren’t you and Harry Osborn close though?” Piper nodded again. Glen let out a low whistle. “Ouch. That can’t be fun.” Piper nodded again her eyes dipping down to her shoes. “How do you keep all of this to yourself?” She sighed. 

“I don’t. I have a network, a few heroes my age, my best friend since we were kids Eddie, my dad. But it’s hard, I mean what am I supposed to do with this information right? Because Harry’s not to blame he was a kid when all this started. But at the moment he’s in charge of Oscorp so…” Glen nodded. 

“That’s horrible. I never realized that being a hero meant that much heartache.” Piper nodded letting him take her hand. She smiled at him slightly as she finished her coffee. 

“It’s not all bad.” He smiled at her as he finished his coffee. She checked her watch. It was nearly nine. 

“He should be up by now, shall we?” Glen grinned and held the door open for her, both of them unaware of the camera clicking behind them in the coffee shop. It took them nearly twenty minutes to reach Dr. Connors’ apartment. Piper knocked on the door and waited. She frowned and knocked again. Glen raised an eyebrow. 

“Maybe he’s not home?” Piper held up a hand. She could hear something through the door, a growl hissing noise. She rattled the doorknob, it was unlocked. She stepped in front of Glen and opened the door.

“Stay behind me.” Glen nodded as Piper stepped into the room. She was tense as she looked around. The room was trashed. Bits of plastic were strewn across the floor and around a small table. The couch was torn to shreds, fluff strewn across the floor towards the small kitchen. The hissing growl grew louder as Piper headed towards the kitchen. Her spidey sense went off a second before a two foot tall something leapt at her. She raised an arm, sharp teeth sinking into the leather of her jacket. It took her a second to realize what she was looking at as she rolled on top of the creature pinning it to the ground as it shredded the sleeve of her jacket. It looked like a mouse but it was covered in green scales, white fur sprouting between them. The things teeth were huge as it tried to dig them into her arm. She whipped a web at it and leapt back as the thing shredded the webbing. It leapt at her again but before it could reach her a large metal pan came down on the back of its head and it screeched in pain before turning on Glen. Piper leapt forwards and caught the thing by its neck. She twisted hard and a snap sounded through the room as the mouse lizard thing slumped to the floor. Glen stared at the thing. 

“What the fuck was that?” Piper shook her head.

“Nothing good.” Piper’s watch beeped and she tapped it a three dimensional map of New York popped up before zooming in on a warehouse near the Hudson. 

“Someone’s going into Oc’s warehouse.” Piper stripped off her top revealing her costume. Glen stared as she pulled on her mask. Spidergirl held out a hand to him. 

“You coming?” Glen nodded and took her hand. They swung off towards the warehouse.


	32. Traps

Dr. Connors got into the warehouse lab with little difficulty. There was only a skeleton crew of security on duty, all of whom recognized him and didn’t question his appearance at the lab. He was one of the scientists who had cleaned it out initially after all and there was still the towering computer structure to deal with. He stepped off the scaffolding Damage Control had constructed and into the small lab area. He set down his bag and pulled out his computer. With some difficulty he hooked it up to Oc’s lab computer. A voice called out to him across the warehouse. 

“Doc Connors!” He looked up and spotted Spidergirl setting Glen Stacy down near the entrance. She swung over to him, easily swinging up to platform. 

“What are you doing Doc?” He fiddled with the cord he was using to connect his computer to the lab setup.

“I’m recreating what I managed last night. It works Piper, the formula works! If you’ll just let me show you!” Neither of them had the chance to do or say anything else as Doc Connors managed to link his computer to the lab. A holographic screen flickered to life a bright red symbol that was far to close to that of Hydra for Piper’s liking popped up.

‘Hello intruder, you want my tech? Have as much as you like, as long as it doesn’t kill you first.’ Dr. Otto Octavius’ voice echoed through the warehouse and a force field popped up in a ten foot circle around the main lab structure. 

“Oh shit.” Piper said as several Octobots clambered out of a nearby unbroken crate. “Doc, see if you can’t shut down the security system!” Piper leapt off the platform landing on one of the Octobots and ripping into its circuits. Dr. Connors turned back to the console and began to desperately type. Nothing moved to stop him as his formula uploaded from his computer onto the lab computer. A progress bar popped up as he tried to shut down the Octobots. The bar hit a hundred and a vial popped out of the computer. Dr. Connors grabbed it just as he heard Piper shout his name. He felt her snag him off the platform as one of the Octobots brought a mass of pipes crashing down onto the platform. She managed to land and breathe for a second before her spidey sense went crazy again. She shoved Dr. Connors out of the way as more pipes began to fall. She almost managed to get out of the way but not quite. Several large pipes came crashing down around her and she screamed as one of them smashed into her legs but she didn’t have much time to think about it as her head met the concrete and her vision starred before going black. 

 

Dr. Connors stumbled to his feet, still clutching the formula in one hand. He glanced around looking for Spidergirl when he spotted her his heart almost stopped. She was laying half under a metal pipe that was at least three times her size and she wasn’t moving. One of the Octobots was advancing on the downed hero. Several of the security officers were trying to get through the force field but they would never make it in time. He had no choice, it was possible, even probable, that the formula would not only allow the regrowth of limbs but enhance human strength. He tore off his lab coat and jabbed the needle into his arm watching with bated breath as the dark green liquid flowed into his veins. He screamed as the formula raced through him like fire and ice, burning and stinging every molecule of his being. 

 

Glen stared as Dr. Connors fell to his knees and one of the Octobots approached the spot where Spidergirl had fallen. He could do nothing to help from outside the forcefield. He was certain that he was about to watch Piper die when suddenly Dr. Connors leapt forwards into the pile of pipes. There was a moments silence before one of the pipes shifted and Dr. Connors reappeared with Spidergirl thrown over his shoulder. Glen stared, Dr. Connors arm was… well it was hard to describe. Where once there had been nothing but a stump maybe an inch longer than his shoulder there was now half an arm, up to the elbow. 

 

Piper blinked slightly. Her legs were sore but she seemed to have been freed from her predicament. She shook her head trying to clear it and blinked at the back in front of her. She wiggled and the person holding her set her back on her feet. She stared at him for a second before recognizing Dr. Connors. His missing arm was back up to the elbow. She blinked at him.

“Doc, what did you do?” The security team finally managed to break through the forcefield and rushed them out of the lab space as the remaining Octobots tore up the lab. Piper shook her head again, stretching her legs slightly. They were sore but nothing appeared to be broken. Glen raced forwards and paused as Dr. Connors scratched his newly growing arm. Spidey had waved off the security team and pulled a cell phone from somewhere. She dialed quickly.

“Nova. Need a favor, swing by the address I’m texting you. You’re gonna need a specimen carrier. One of the bigger ones, needs to be more than two feet at least. Don’t worry the thing is dead.” Dr. Connors frowned, still itching his arm. 

“What are you talking about Spidergirl?” Piper held up a finger, silently telling the scientist to wait. He couldn’t really tell where she was looking. Under her mask her big blue eyes were fixed on Dr. Connors new arm. It looked alright, no scales or anything. But she wasn’t sure how far she could trust her eyes on this.

“Have JARVIS clear out the Bio Chem level. I don’t care this takes precedence. Yes now. We’re on our way.” Piper put her hand down slipping her phone back into her costume. 

“Doc, I’m gonna take you back to Stark Tower. Glen you follow in a cab, I’m gonna need your help.” Glen nodded racing outside already calling an Uber. Piper grabbed Doctor Connors around the waist and pulled them both out of the warehouse and across the New York skyline.


	33. Pasts In Focus

Harry Osborn had been very busy over the past month. Ever since he’d been rescued by the Avengers from Hydra he’d been thinking. Nightmares had plagued him, Piper covered in blood but this time it was hers, her jumping in front of a bullet for him, the man with the monocle doing unspeakable things to her in front of him until she screamed and choked on her own blood. He woke up screaming a few times, it really didn’t help that he hadn’t seen her since he’d left Stark Tower the day after they were rescued. After the third time he woke screaming he paced into his dad’s office. It had been about two in the morning when he’d cracked open his dad’s laptop and gotten past his password. He was sort of terrified what he would find. There was a lot of information on the laptop. A lot of it seemed to be mundane stuff but digging deeper, using what Piper had taught him about hacking in their spare time he found something. A file folder labeled with a small image of an octopus. He delved deeper and stared as he came across a video file. He hesitated for a moment before he clicked on it. It looked like security camera footage of a lab he’d never seen before. There was a man laying on a table. He had dark hair and pasty skin. Harry jumped slightly as his father stepped up to the man. 

‘Octavius, we know you’re awake.’ The man turned his head but the rest of his body didn’t move. His father gave a smile that Harry recognized as the cool smile he gave when things had gone his way. The man on the table, Octavius, spoke.

‘W… what did you do to me?’ Norman shook his head. 

‘Nasty business, that plane crash. You’re paralyzed, from the neck down. We have a way of getting around it but I’m not sure we’re going to. Not for you anyway. Not after that business with SHEILD.’ Harry stared. He checked the date stamp on the video. This was from years ago, nearly thirteen years ago. His father looked down at his fingernails, uncaring of the tears slipping down the face of the man in front of him. 

‘I.. I don’t know…’ The man on the table trailed off as Norman raised a condescending eyebrow at him. 

‘Richard Parker wore it well, so did his wife. Professionals the both of them. Even the Brocks were better at hiding it. On you, it’s a cheep suit. It’s a shame really they were very intelligent people and both had children, now orphans, because you are spectacularly bad at keeping your cool. But despite that you’re intelligent. What do you say we give you another chance, your last chance doctor. Nobody knows your alive, nobody cares, except for me. You could advance Oscorp into the future, if you only cooperate.’ The man on the table was sobbing. Norman checked his watch. 

‘I’ll leave you to think about that.’ The video stayed on Octavius as Norman left the room. Harry stared at the screen as the doctor sobbed. He slammed the laptop closed. The implications of this were horrible. His father had tortured a man, had… Had been responsible for the plane crash that had killed Piper and Eddies parents. Harry bit back a sob. There was nothing he could do to fix this. But maybe there was a way he could make up for it. He stood and stepped over to a set of blueprints that his father had been working. Determination lit his eyes as he flattened them out and read the name at the bottom of the page. 

“Hobgoblin.” 

 

Piper tapped away on the screen in front of her. She hadn’t even bothered to take off her mask when she’d swung into Stark Tower. Glen had arrived shortly after them. Dr. Connors hadn’t understood what they were panicking about until Nova had flown in holding a specimen box looking disgusted. 

“Look I know you’re into some weird shit Spidey but.” Piper cut across him grabbing the box from him. He recognized the body language from when she’d been trying to cure Harry of Venom. He frowned and grabbed her hand. 

“Spidey, what do you need?” Piper shook her head, forcing a smile under her mask. 

“Time I don’t have.” Sam held her there for a moment before she spoke again. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you cared.” Sam dropped her hand. 

“I never stopped caring webhead, I just stopped trusting.” With that he flew out of the window. Piper blinked back a few tears as she popped open the box. She winced slightly at the dead giant rat thing. Dr. Connors started at the sight of it. 

“What is that?” Piper shook her head as she pulled it out of the case.

“We were hoping you could tell us. It attacked us when we went to your apartment this morning.” Dr. Connors frowned and peeled back the eyelid of the thing. He shook his head. 

“It can’t be. Freddie?” Piper shook her head. 

“I was afraid you were going to say that. You tested the formula on him didn’t you?” Dr. Connors nodded. Glen shook his head. 

“Who’s Freddie?” Piper let out a hissing sigh through her teeth. 

“His three legged mouse. Or at least he was.” Glen stared. 

“That thing was a mouse?” Dr. Connors nodded looking beyond terrified as he scratched at his arm. It had continued to get longer, it was almost had a wrist again. 

“A rather small mouse actually.” Glen ran a hand through his short blonde hair. 

“Shit.” Piper nodded and snatched up a syringe from the table sticking it in between two of the scales. She pulled the plunger up and frowned at the greenish red liquid inside. 

“When last night did you use the formula on Freddie?” Dr. Connors shook his head. 

“Midnight, when I woke up at eight he had all his legs but he wasn’t this.” Piper nodded. 

“We got there at around nine. Which means we have about six maybe seven hours to figure this out.” Glen nodded and took the syringe from her quickly dropping a small amount onto a slide and sliding it under the microscope. 

“No time to waste then.” Piper nodded and set to work. The damage crew had retrieved what was left of Doc Connors laptop. It looked like the hard drive was mostly intact but the rest of the computer was shot. She had to get something workable from this if they were going to fix this. Dr. Connors was shaking as he sat down hard in one of the chairs. 

“I… I never thought…This wasn’t how… It was supposed to be a cure.” Piper reached out and squeezed his hand. 

“We’re not going to stop trying to fix this.” Dr. Connors nodded but he didn’t stop shaking.


	34. Breakout

Four hours passed. Dr. Connors had passed out about an hour ago, the pain of re-growing a limb finally catching up to him. His hand was about halfway through re-growing. Piper couldn’t look at it. Glen shook his head. 

“The serum creates new variants of lizard DNA faster than I can identify them. I don’t know how we’re gonna do this in time.” Piper yanked her mask off and scrubbed at her face. Tony had locked down this level for the day when they’d arrived, no one could enter the level if they didn’t want them to save the man himself. 

“Octavius’ notes survived, so did most of Doc Connors’ but I can’t make heads or tails of Octavius’ findings. It seems like he hadn’t had the opportunity to test this particular project of his. Piper let out a shaky breath and flipped to the ceiling. Glen glanced at her. 

“What are you doing?” Piper sat of the ceiling for a moment. 

“Getting a new perspective.” She frowned. “Wait maybe that’s it. What if we’re going about this the wrong way. We’ve been trying to come at this from the lizard side of things, what if we came at it the other way. A human DNA filter, something that will knock out anything that isn’t human, not just lizard but anything. Like the noise filter on a cellphone.” Glen stared at her for a minute. 

“That’s just crazy enough that it might work.” Glen pulled up the information they had. “I think we have everything we need to do it too.” Piper nodded and they both jumped as a groan sounded from the small couch at the edge of the room. Piper was faster than Glen and made it to the couch first. Dr. Connors was convulsing on the couch, Piper pushed Glen behind her. 

“Doc?” His eyes blinked open, but instead of their usual brown tone they were darker, red and the pupil was no longer round but thin like that of a venomous snake. Piper swore colorfully. 

“We’re running out of time.” Glen nodded running back to his station to work on the new formula. Piper stepped closer to Dr. Connors. 

“Doc?” He looked up at her his tongue flickered out, the end had separated, leaving it forked. Piper tried not to show how badly this was affecting her. Dr. Connors was one of the few people who had known her parents. When she’d told him who she was he’d invited her over to his apartment and gone through decades old scrapbooks to find the few pictures he had of her parents telling her everything they had worked on together. He’d even had a picture from the baby shower before she was born. Aunt May and Uncle Ben were in the photo, he’d insisted she take that one. She didn’t have many photos of all of them together. 

“You still with us Doc?” He nodded. “Can you talk?” He blinked at her for a moment.

“Yess. I think sso.” His voice was hoarse but if that was from pain or his short nap Piper couldn’t tell. There was a hissing lilt to his tone that Piper didn’t recognize. 

“That’s good, we had an idea. We’re gonna create a gene filter, something that will target any non human DNA.” Doc Connors nodded slightly then looked up at her again, his eyes almost glowing. 

“Even sspider.” That hadn’t actually occurred to her but in theory yes, the cleanser they were working on could be a cure for her spider powers. She blinked at him as he shook and groaned again. He shook as Piper watched bone and tissue stretch and grow into four functional fingers and a thumb. The nails were longer sharper than a regular humans. 

“Maybe.” He shrieked as he shook and grunted as several scales pushed their way through his skin.

“Glen! How are we doing on that filter.” Glen shook his head. 

“I need more time.” Piper shook her head as long yellow claws dug into the couch. 

“We don’t have time Glen.” Glen swore as he kept working as fast as he could. The sound of bones snapping and resetting themselves echoed through the mostly empty lab. Piper had to stifle a sob as Dr. Connors started to scream.

 

The light around him was bright, warm. It was nice. A long tongue flicked out, tasting the air. There were two people in the room. One smelled different though, the sharp tang of something non human on her skin. He shook his head and blinked slightly head tilting as he looked up. It looked like someone had put a color saturation filter over the world, everything was in much sharper detail than he’d ever seen. There were indeed two people in the room, one in stunningly bright red and blue the other in a white lab coat. The figure in red and blue was much more interesting. The red was shot through with fine lines of gold. Here eyes were sparkling blue but he could make out a slightly purple tint to the veins in her eye. He could smell the venom on her breath, just a hint of it there. He blinked at her, a transparent third eyelid sliding over his eye as his tongue flickered out again. 

“Doc, you still in there?” Words were difficult to reach for but after a few more flicks of the tongue he managed it. 

“Yesss.” The blonde let out a frustrated noise as the one who smelled like spiders stepped forwards gently laying a hand on his shoulder. 

“I can’t figure out what Octavius did to his formula.” Dr. Connors hissed as his tongue flickered out again. 

“How about we asssk him.” He leapt over the two and stalked over to the briefcase that still lay where he’d left it the night before. 

“Doc you need to sit down. We don’t know what this has done to you, there’s every chance that this transformation had affected your mind.” His tongue flickered out over the briefcase. Metal and unwashed hair was not a smell he would say he enjoyed but it would be easy enough to track, he leapt over the two again and skittered to a window. 

 

Piper swore and fired a web, near his head, a warning shot.

“Doc, I can’t let you run around New York like this. You need to listen to me.” The giant lizard roared at her and smashed its head into the glass before tumbling out of the forty first floor of Stark Tower.


	35. Bugged

Piper swore pulling on her mask one handed, using her other hand to fire a web at Dr. Connors. It caught him a few feet before he would have hit the pavement. He twisted and slashed through the webline. Screams echoed from the sidewalk as he dropped the last few feet to the pavement, his tongue flicking out to taste the air. Piper turned in the shattered window. 

“Keep working on the cleanser! I’m going after him. I’ll send someone to help you.” With that she dove backwards out of the window. She dropped thirty stories before firing a webline to catch herself. She glanced down and caught sight of Dr. Connors tail slicking around the corner. She swung after him. 

 

Glen had quite a lot running through his head as Piper leapt out the window after the giant green lizard that had been his boss. The first thought in his head was that he may have bitten off more than he could chew, he was good but he wasn’t dealing with supervillains good, let alone giant mutant lizards. But then he remembered her smile, the blush on her face when they’d kissed, and he knew he couldn’t back out now. As he dug through Dr. Connors altered Lizard formula the elevator opened revealing Tony Stark accompanied by White Tiger. He hadn’t met any of Piper’s team yet, except that brief glimpse of Nova that he was trying not to think about. Tony stepped up to him. 

“Tell me what you got.” He told Mr. Stark everything as fast as he could. The engineer nodded. “This isn’t really my area. Bruce is on his way.” Glen’s eyebrows rose.

“Bruce Banner?” Tony nodded and pulled up a live news feed. 

‘Spidergirl appears to be chasing what I can only describe as a giant Lizard down Fifth Avenue. Our helicopter is in pursuit.’ The video showed people scattering as Piper swung through the streets in hot pursuit of Dr. Connors. They disappeared from sight into an alleyway. By the time the helicopter had swung around they had both disappeared. Tony swore slightly. White Tiger tapped her wrist, a watch appearing out of nowhere. 

“Spidey where are you?” The response was almost immediate. 

“The sewer, following Doc Connors. I think he caught Oc’s scent, which is one of the weirdest sentences I’ve ever said in my life.” Tony pulled a face. “How are we doing on the fix to our scaly problem?” Tiger glanced over at Glen, he shook his head as the door to the elevator opened again. This time Dr. Banner stepped out and quickstepped over to Glen. 

“Catch me up.” Glen nodded and began to explain the situation to the doctor trying desperately to not freak out that he was having a conversation with the Dr. Banner.

“Dr. Banner just showed up so hopefully we’ll be getting there soon. How about you?” There was silence over the line for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was barely above a whisper.

“I think we just found Doc Oc.” The connection cut off and Tony swore. He tapped a few keys before Bruce laid a hand on his. 

“She can handle herself, I need you here. She’ll call back if she needs us.” Tony hesitated but nodded slightly and the two of them huddled around the console with Glen. 

 

Piper had never been happier that her mask had a filter in it. She didn’t often have to venture into the sewers but sometimes when chasing bad guys it was unavoidable. She’d had a filter built into all of her masks. That at least meant that she wouldn’t have to deal with the smell all around her as she followed Dr. Connors through the tunnels. She felt guilty that she was having to tail her friend like he was some kind of common criminal but if he was tracking Doc Oc then she needed to be there when they confronted each other. She tapped her watch, a holo-screen popping up, revealing a red dot a few tunnels away. She had placed a tracker on Doc Connors when she’d laid a hand on him before he had broken out of Stark Tower. She crept down the tunnels and onto the ceiling as she began to hear Doc Connors voice. 

“Perfect thisss and we save millions.” A harsh laugh sounded through the tunnels. Piper peeked around the corner. The room looked like an abandoned subway platform that had been repurposed into a mad scientist lab. Doc Oc was standing there laughing at Doc Connors, who was looking distinctly ruffled. He’d sprouted spikes along his back. 

“You laugh at me, your saviorer?” Doc Oc let out another loud laugh. 

“You’ve taken the mind of a true genius and turned it into a pea brain. You took a serum without waiting even twenty four hours to see what it would do. You must have been truly desperate to do something so monumentally stupid.” He let out another dark chuckle as Piper slipped into the room. The two doctors were so focused on each other neither of them noticed her on the ceiling. One of Doc Oc’s tentacles reached out and tapped at Dr. Connors’ snout. He bared his teeth snapping at the metal arm. 

“I am quite intrigued at what the serum has done to your skin though, this hide of yours seems nearly impenetrable. I never did get the chance to test my version of the serum. It doesn’t surprise me that an untested experiment turned you into a monster.” Doc Connors snarled. 

“You want see monster? I show monster!” A roar shook the room and Doc Oc tried to dodge backwards but was too slow as Doc Connors grabbed one of his tentacle arms and pulled hard. The metal crumbled under his claws. Piper stifled a gasp as Doc Oc screamed. She really didn’t like him but that didn’t mean he deserved to die, she needed him if they were going to cure Norman Osborn. It was now or never, so she snapped her wrist out and shot a web into Doc Connors’ eyes. He lurched back, clawing at the webbing. 

“Sorry Doc, I don’t want to hurt you but I can’t let you kill him.” The Lizard howled and hissed as Doc Oc backed off. 

“You moron, you lead Spidergirl right to me!” Piper fired off a few more webs sticking Dr. Connors to the floor and barricading him in a corner with webbing. 

“What did you do to your formula doc? Tell me and I’ll leave, with him.” Doc Oc scoffed. 

“I don’t believe you and even if I did why would I…” Another roar answered his question as Dr. Connors ripped through the last of the webbing. 

“Would you prefer I left you to him?” Doc Oc shook his head as Dr. Connors lunged. Piper ducked and snagged him by the tail and yanked hard, pulling him of his feet and throwing him across the lab. Doc Oc hesitated but another roar seemed to convince him that the situation was enough to rethink his stance on spiders. 

“Keep him off the computers.” Oc made his way over to the computers as Spidey wrestled with the giant Lizard that had been her friend. 

“Whatever you’re going to do, do it fast!” Doc Oc let out another snort as Spidey was forced to tackle the Lizard to the ground. 

“Stop fighting me Doc! I’m trying to help you!” She grunted as she was tossed across them room landing on the wall near where Doc Oc was working on one of the computers. He turned the screen. 

“I don’t know what he did to my formula, you seem to know more about this situation than I do. What’s different?” Piper skimmed through the formula quickly before ducking as her spidey sense went crazy. A large green tail came down right where her head had been. She whirled kicking his legs out from under him. Doc Oc raced away towards what looked like a vault. 

“Over here.” Piper dove around the hissing Lizard and ducked flat to the floor as the Lizard lunged. Doc Oc smacked the Lizard into the vault before slamming the door. Doc Oc frowned.

“I’m surprised, we make a rather effective team.” Piper scowled at him.

“You’d make a solid dog catcher doc.” The wall shook, the vault door pushing outwards. “Or not. You got any other bright ideas” Piper faced the door, which in hindsight was probably a mistake. 

“Have you ever heard the term, sacrificial lamb?” Piper didn’t have time to register her spidey sense going off before she was electrocuted from behind. She screamed as the door was torn apart from the inside.


	36. Hunted, Again

Piper crumpled to the floor as she heard the vault door tear. She almost managed to pull herself to her feet before a large green tail wrapped around her throat and dragged her into the air. She choked, adrenaline kicking into high gear as both her hands shot to the large scaly appendage currently restricting her windpipe. She heard a laugh from across the room. Doc Oc was apparently still there, across the room. She heard him gathering things. The Lizard snarled at her and she swore, she didn’t want to hurt Dr. Connors. But she also wasn’t keen on dying so she bunched up her legs, planted them firmly on the Lizards chest and pushed off hard. This had the desired effect, forcing the tail out to its outer limits and making him drop her in surprise. Doc Oc screamed as the lizard raced in his direction, Piper vaguely heard the sound of shattering glass as she grabbed the Lizard by the tail and yanked hard. 

“I know you’re still in there Doc Connors. We’re gonna get you out.” Oc snorted as he raced out of the room.

“Good luck without my help, obnoxious arachnid.” Piper rolled her eyes under her mask.

“Wasn’t talking about you jackass!” She flipped up to the ceiling above the tunnel she’d come in through. 

“Hey buddy, so you seem to be mostly Lizard at this point so how about we play a game. Not a game I like but I know you will. You wanna hunt?” The Lizard perked up at this.

“Hunt, good.” Piper nodded and took off down the tunnel the Lizard hot on her heels. 

“That’s what I thought you’d say!” She made sure he never lost sight of her as she dodged up out of a manhole and paused on the street. She tapped her communicator.

“How we doing on that antidote Tiger?” She didn’t have time to actually watch her watch but she could hear White Tiger speaking.

“Not so well, apparently Doc Oc’s version of the formula was destroyed along with Connor’s laptop at the warehouse.” Piper swore as she dove forwards catching onto a street lamp. She glanced behind her and saw the Lizard gripping onto a brick wall with his claws. 

“Hey wall crawling is my thing! You start slinging a web and I’ll sue!” She dove from streetlight to streetlight as her mind raced and the Lizard behind her roared.

“How clear is the road in front of Stark Tower?” Tony must be standing right next to Ava, for she could hear him clear as a bell. 

“Roadblocked a few blocks out on all sides. Don’t want anyone bothering with the broken glass and the large Lizard you better be luring here.” Piper grinned as she dove to the street as her spidey sense tingled and Doc Connors lunged at her, she rolled on impact and came up running ducking through an alley back towards Stark Tower. 

“You know me too well. I need the team on street level. I got a look at Doc Oc’s formula. I should be able to remember it enough to find the differences.” She got a grunt of agreement before Ava clicked off her com. Piper leapt over the police barricade, the Lizard hot on her heels. She made it to the front of Stark Tower and pulled to a halt turning to face her pursuer. He was crouched down, there was almost a smile on his face. 

“This was you plan?” Piper shook her head as the doors to her left burst open the Team lunging past her, joined surprisingly by Captain America and Black Widow, who was armed with stun guns instead of her usual pistols. 

“This was me plan! Play nice, I’ll be right back!” She shot a web catapulting her up the building. She flipped into the room through the already broken window and didn’t bother removing her mask, there were several news helicopters circling the fight outside that could no doubt point their cameras into the broken window of Stark Tower at any moment. 

“Formula please!” She said as she flipped up to the ceiling above Bruce. Glen obliged pulling up the original Lizard formula. 

 

Natasha was pissed. She and Steve were both light sleepers and had awoken to the sounds of the elevator zipping between floors. She’d decided not to ask JARVIS what was going on and instead headed out of her level via the vents. When she’d moved into the tower Tony had offered to make the vents more accessible on her floor so she could get around easily the way she liked, she’d quickly turned him down. She preferred to be one of the only people who knew where the vents were. She followed the sound of the elevator down to the bio chem floor where she could hear Tony, Bruce, Ava and one of Dr. Connors inters speaking about a formula. She dropped down and landed easily next to Bruce who didn’t even flinch. She let a small smile grace her lips as Ava, in her White Tiger costume, jumped slightly. Tony glared at her and the blonde boy next to Bruce let out a loud shout of surprise. She didn’t bother to look at the teenager instead turning to Ava who looked a bit out of place. 

“Catch me up.” Ava had just barely finished catching Natasha up when the elevator pinged and Steve stepped off the elevator. He was in his Captain America uniform.

“Had JARVIS turn on the news for me, saw a big green guy burst out of the Tower. Figured you might need help.” He ran a hand through his hair as Tony nodded, still going over the formula in front of him. Ava nodded and caught Steve up on the situation. She managed to finish telling him everything she knew and catch her breath as the rest of the team arrived. Her watch pinged. 

Now they were all trying to keep the Lizard under control. The stun gun wasn’t doing much, his hide seemed to thick to penetrate. Steve and Nova were having better luck with their shield and energy blasts respectively. But none of them actually wanted to directly attack the Dr. So all they were working on was containment. But the Lizard was growing more and more frustrated. Soon they would have to attack to defend themselves. She was not looking forward to that. 

 

 

Somewhere below the city an entity stirred, feeling stagnant smelly air waft over it for the first time in a while. It had no true head to speak of but several feelers spread out around it. Broken glass, the cage that had held it shattered. It felt its other pieces calling out to it and wiggled over to a box. It was easy enough to slide in through the key hole. It was even easier to smash the containers within from the outside. 

The entity rejoiced at finally being whole. Now all it needed was a host. It knew it was short on time as it slithered out of the room and up into the streets. Something was happening down the road, things happening meant people, people meant a new host. It reached the crowd of people, the something must be quite interesting but it could only catch glimpses of the thing happening behind a barricade of road blocks and a sea of legs. A voice nearby it caught its attention. 

“Aw man, can’t get a good view of anything from here.” The entity crept forwards and placed itself in the path of the retreating figure. He was tall, well muscled. Not an enhanced like his Spider, but clearly athletic. He radiated hurt, it could smell the sour emotion on the boy. It would have smiled to itself but it had no mouth in this form. Instead it carefully wrapped around the boys shoe as he walked away from the crowd trying to find a spot where he could get a better view. 

Flash frowned down at his black sneakers. He could have sworn he stepped in something but there was nothing there, he frowned as he ran to one of the slightly less crowded police barricades to watch the fight.


	37. Cured?

Piper let out a cry of triumph as she scrolled through Dr. Connors formula. She had spotted where he’d altered Doc Oc’s formula. Instead of answering the questions shot at her from Bruce and Glen, Tony knew better than to interrupt her when she was on a roll, she began to furiously type the alterations into Glen’s formula. It could work, with the right amount of radiation it could work. She drummed her hand on the table as the formula synthesized. She double checked the formula and snatched the vial as it popped out of the machine. Without a word she leapt over the others and out the still broken window. Glen stared after her. 

“Does she do this often?” Tony shrugged.

“I’ve only know for five months that she even has powers, Bruce?” The doctor shrugged slightly.

“Only in highly stressful situations. This definitely qualifies. There’s usually more laughter when she jumps out of buildings.” Tony shook his head slightly pulling up the live news coverage. 

 

Piper swung forwards slamming both feet into the back of the Lizard just as he was about to lunge towards Natasha.

“What took you so long Webs!” Piper rolled her eyes at Nova, but he and most of the team, save Luke, were covered in scratches. 

“Hey rebuilding genetic formulas from memory takes time Bucket Head!” She didn’t get a chance to say more as she was thrown off the Lizards back. She skidded to crouch in front of one of the smaller barricades. 

“Come on Lizzie! You know it’s me your after, show me what you got!” The Lizard roared his mouth opening so wide he might have been able to fit her whole torso in it. She lunged forwards as the Lizard hissed. She ducked below him snagging his tail and spinning a web one handed, the other still clutching the cure. Frustrated she yanked her mask up over her mouth and gripped the syringe with her teeth as she spun and crawled around the Lizard as he struggled trying to tear his way out of the webbing. She paused for a breath and Captain America stepped over to her.

“Nice job.” She shook her head, removing the syringe from her mouth.

“That’s not gonna hold him long. We need to get the cure into him somehow.” Natasha shook her head, nursing her right arm slightly, there was a long gash along it. 

“His hide is too thick to pierce.” She held up a bent knife to prove her point and Spidergirl swore under her breath. She looked down at the syringe in her hand.

“We’re gonna have to make him drink it.” Natasha shook her head but Spidey saw something she didn’t, the Lizard had ripped his way through the webbing and was lunging at Natasha. 

“No!” She shoved Natasha away as the Lizard dodged Nova and Powerman, landing where Natasha had been, where Spidergirl was now. The force of the blow took them both off their feet and the rolled, wrestling. Claws ripped into Piper’s arms and shoulders. She was just trying to avoid the snapping jaw. She managed to rip one of her arms free losing her webshooter and most of her sleeve as she went, along with a good chunk of skin. She whipped a web out and yanked hard, tearing Steve’s shield from his arm. They rolled again as Piper pinned the Lizard to the asphalt, her knees stuck to the pavement, nothing short of a two ton force was moving her now, though the Lizard was giving it his best shot as she webbed down both his arms with one webshooter, earning a few more slashes as she did. He roared at her which was what she’d been waiting for. She jammed the shield into his open mouth, an angry muffled hissing and spitting sound coming from the former doctors throat. 

“Alright Doc, time to take your meds!” She jabbed the syringe into his mouth barely avoiding the teeth in the small space between the back of his throat and the shield. She emptied the contents of the syringe down his throat. The Lizard gagged but swallowed the chemicals pouring down its throat. Spidey yanked the shield down and out of his mouth as the Lizard whimpered and jerked on the pavement. They all stared as the scales began to flake off and the arm the doctor had lost began to shrivel and fall off along with the tail. Spidey stepped forwards and quickly wove a large web that resembled a blanket. Dr. Connors groaned and slowly levered himself up off the pavement. He looked dizzy and confused. 

“What… What happened? Spidergirl?” She carefully swung the web blanket around his shoulders and helped him to his feet. 

“You’re gonna be ok Doc.” Natasha and Steve rushed forwards. Nova and Luke had been the least injured of the team. When Spidey had appeared Steve insisted they escort White Tiger and Iron Fist, both of whom where very banged up, back into the tower. The two less injured team members were right behind Steve as he gently took his shield back from Spidey, inspecting her arm as he did. She shook her head at him. 

“I’ll be fine Captain. I’ve had worse.” Natasha looped an arm around Dr. Connors who still looked very confused, almost like he wasn’t quite processing what was going on around him. 

“Not the point Spidergirl, you need to get that arm looked at.” Spidey nodded, releasing Dr. Connors into Steve and Natasha’s hands. 

“Will do Miss Widow. Can I call you that?” The cameras clicking all around them were the only reason Natasha didn’t crack a smile. Instead she shook her head. Steve though seemed less concerned about their audience.

“You really should come with us Spidergirl.” Spidey shook her head and picked up her second webshooter, or what she could of it. It was nearly shredded. 

“Nah gotta get home and fix this mess.” She said gesturing to the broken webshooter. Before either of them could protest she sent a web at a nearby building and swung away, heading away from Stark Tower. Nova rubbed the back of his neck, landing next to Steve. 

“I think we’ll take you up on the offer if it still stands.” Steve smiled at them.

“Of course it does.” The small group of five made their way as quickly as possible into the tower. Natasha was the only one who noticed the slightly green tint to Dr. Connors eyes before he completely passed out.


	38. Dinner

It took Piper about half an hour to get home. She had to shake the helicopters that were trying to tail her, but she eventually managed it. She slipped in through the windows of the med level and plopped herself down on one of the beds. The team was still there, each already patched up. Dr. Hellen Cho stepped over to her, kit in hand, shaking her head. 

“I’m seeing you in here too often Miss Parker.” Piper let out a non-committal noise as Hellen cut off what was left of her sleeves. 

“Being a hero is a dangerous business.” Hellen nodded slightly. A voice from the doorway spoke.

“Yeah and you, like your father are a self sacrificing idiot.” Piper grinned up at Natasha sheepishly.

“How’s he taking this latest little escapade?” Natasha shrugged.

“Better than most. He’s overseeing the cleaning out of the lab you and Doc Connors found in the sewer. No sign of Oc but he didn’t have time to grab most of his things. He says he’ll transfer the data to your server but he’s probably gonna be up all night sifting through it.” Piper nodded as Dr. Cho finished stitching up her right arm and moved on to her left. A blonde head poked around Natasha and Glen hissed slightly. Dr. Cho ignored everyone, focusing on her work. Natasha nodded to Piper as Dr. Cho finished her work and began to clean up her arms, gently ridding them of the excess blood. She spoke.

“Do not take out those yourself again young lady. There are some even you wont be able to reach alone. And they need to be in for at least twenty four hours. Do not take them out before them.” She waited for Piper to nod before she wrapped up her arms all the way down to the wrists. Without another word she packed up her kit and left. Glen stood in the doorway for a minute. Piper raised an eyebrow at him.

“You ok?” He let out a long breath. 

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that?” Piper laughed a little hollowly. 

“I’ve had worse.” Glen ran a hand through his hair.

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me. A little bit concerning… Is it always like this?” Piper tilted her head at him. 

“Like what?” Glen gestured to her arms, wrapped in sterile white bandages. 

“Like this with the injuries and the… Dr. Connors is in a medically induced coma until they can be sure that he’s gonna be alright.” Piper nodded slightly. “Mr. Stark is thinking about shutting down the internship, that it’s too dangerous. The Black Widow got her arm gashed open… And I was part of the group that made the lizard formula.” Piper hopped off the table and stepped over to Glen, taking his shaking hands in hers. 

“Look at me, please.” Glen did as she asked and she looked him in the eyes for a moment before she spoke again. “Being a superhero isn’t easy. It’s not all the times that the news shows. It doesn’t always mean winning, it means scrapes and bruises. It means scars, it means losing. More than anyone can understand.” Piper took a deep breath as Glen processed what she was saying. 

“I wouldn’t blame you if you decided to walk out the door and never look back. If we keep seeing each other there’s every chance it will paint a target on your head. And not just because I’m Spidergirl, being the daughter of an Avenger is extremely dangerous.” Glen’s hands tightened on hers, remembering when Hydra had taken Piper straight out of a coffee shop in broad daylight. “It’s up to you what happens next.” 

They stood in silence for a moment before Glen took a deep breath.

“Well I mean my mom is expecting you for dinner tonight. Can’t let her down. Maybe we’ll see how it goes from there?” A small smile pulled at Piper’s lips. 

“That sounds lovely. Let me go change.” Glen grinned after her as she raced past him to the elevator. 

 

Sam frowned after Piper. He wanted to say he was over her. He wanted to say it, but he couldn’t. When she’d walked out of the Helicarier, stating that there was no team, that she would defeat the Goblin on her own, he’d felt his heart shatter. He honestly didn’t know if he’d have gone after her without the others pushing him to. Over the past four months he’d gotten to know the Avengers, her little family, but he still couldn’t say he really understood her anymore. She had the kind of guilt complex you couldn’t find on anyone else their age. The closest comparison was Tony Stark himself but she was almost worse. He sighed as he, Luke and Danny headed down to their rooms on Captain America’s level. He pulled off his helmet, setting it down on his bedside table and flopped down on the bed. He sighed up at the ceiling as he couldn’t help but think about what could have been. 

 

Piper quickly cleaned up and changed clothes. She switched out her ruined costume for a long sleeved top that would cover the bandages and a pair of nice slacks. She pulled on her leather jacket and headed to the garage where JARVIS informed her Glen was waiting. She handed him a helmet and pulled on her own. The ride to his apartment complex was quiet, just the rush of cars around them to keep them company. 

 

Dinner started out great. The food was delicious, conversation was light and polite. Then after the salad was done and everyone was digging into the main course the subject turned to the events of the day. They stuck to their story that neither of them had been anywhere near Stark Tower when any of it happened. That seemed to get passed the police chief. What hadn’t though was the identity of the Lizard which had apparently been all over the news. Neither of them really had to hide their shock at the news, neither of them had quite wrapped their heads around the fact that Doc Connors had done something so desperate and stupid, even if it had been to save Piper. But Captain Stacy took it a step further. 

 

“I’m just saying that anyone who gets close to Stark seems to come out worse for it.” He took a sip of his drink as Piper had to hold herself back from crushing the metal handle of the fork she was holding. Apparently Captain Stacy wasn’t finished though. “I’m just saying I’m not comfortable having you go back there after this Glen. It’s dangerous.” Piper set down her fork and let a forced smile pass her lips.

“I’m sorry you feel that way Captain Stacy. Stark Industries would be lucky to have someone like Glen as a full time employee. He’s brilliant, innovative and thinks fast on his feet. I understand your concerns though.” She turned to Mrs. Stacy. “Thank you for the meal, it was delicious.” She set her napkin onto her half finished plate and excused herself from the table. Grabbing her helmet and her keys from the counter where she’d left them she stepped out of the door and walked down the hall of the building. Instead of leaving the building though she went up. It was easy to find the roof access door. She set her helmet down and swung her legs off the side of the building. It took Glen nearly twenty minutes to find her. She was looking over the city. 

“Piper I’m so sorry. I didn’t know he was going to say anything like that.” Piper shook her head.

“No, it’s… unsurprising honestly.” Glen sat down next to her, a little further in than she was. He didn’t have her spectacular balance. 

“What do you mean?” Piper shook her head. She brought her hands up in front of her. 

“Well let’s see.” She began to tick off names on her fingers as she continued. “Obadia Stane, Ben Parker, May Parker, Dr. Connors, Norman Osborn, arguably Nick Fury, Claire Brock, Terrance Brock, Richard Parker, Mary Parker, nearly Pepper Potts and James Rhodes. Nearly Mary Jane Watson, Ava Ayala and Liz Allen, nearly Harry Osborn though his life got fucked because of me anyway so that’s not really a nearly.” Glen held up a hand.

“What are you doing?” She refused to look at him. 

“I’m listing people whose lives were either torn apart or straight up taken by their association to a Stark.” She kept going. “Justin Hammer, but really he deserved it. Ivan Vanko. Tony Stark in all honesty.” She paused and Glen shook his head at her.

“Piper.” She didn’t let him speak. 

“It’s not surprising that your dad doesn’t want you around Starks, let alone Parkers. Add the bad luck from the two of us together and you’ll never dig your way out of it.” Glen shook his head. 

“That’s not…” Piper cut across him. 

“What. Not true? Look around you, look at everyone who’s ever been hurt. Would you like me to go back over the list! Because it wasn’t really done. That’s what was worst about what your dad said. He’s right.” Piper stood and snatched up her helmet. 

“I should never have done this. I should never have gotten involved with you. I’m sorry.” Piper made to run for the door but Glen just managed to catch her hand. 

“Didn’t you say that was my choice? That I could decide if it was worth the danger or not?” Piper turned her head away from him. 

“Staying is the wrong decision. I won’t lose anyone else I care about.” She pulled her hand free and raced through the door, stepping around a stunned looking Captain Stacy, barely noticing him as she ran to the ground floor and shoved her helmet on her head, gunning her engine and racing away back to Stark Tower.


	39. So What Happens Now

Another week passed and before anyone knew it, it was time to head back to school. Piper had been dreading going back to school since the last month of school. She had missed a few days because of the fall of SHEILD and the injuries she’d sustained but after that everyone had avoided her at school. Even the teachers had avoided her. Only her team, Harry, MJ and Eddie had still even spoken to her. But the team was still upset at her for not sharing the fact that SHEILD had been compromised, though Ava seemed to have warmed back up to her. She’d barely interacted with the boys outside of training and patrol all summer. She hadn’t seen Harry since they had both been rescued from Hydra, and lucky for her Glen went to a different school. 

She hadn’t spoken to Glen since that night on the roof of his apartment building. She couldn’t. She did care about him, it wasn’t love, maybe if they had a few interrupted months it would have been but it wasn’t. But that didn’t mean she didn’t care about him. They had grown quite close during their time helping Dr. Connors work on the Lizard formula. But she knew what happened when people got close to her, and it was never good. So she did what she did best, she ran and hid, burying herself in her work. 

Dr. Connors had been moved to Dr. Cho’s facility, he was still in a medically induced coma, none of them were sure if the gene cleanser had worked completely. Piper still felt guilty, she was pushing herself harder and harder in training. If she had just been a bit faster then maybe Dr. Connors wouldn’t have taken the formula. She hadn’t stopped blaming herself for it since it happened, no matter what anyone said. 

 

Pepper insisted that she dress nice for the first day back at school. It was her last year after all. She wasn’t sure what she would be doing after high school, maybe MIT, maybe ESU so she could keep up her Spidey time. But no matter what she was not excited to arrive at school. Tony insisted that he would drive her to school. She was dressed up in a nice pair of grey jeans, a white top with a black lace overlay and a grey suit jacket that matched her jeans. She took a deep breath. Tony laid a hand on her shoulder. 

“You don’t have to go, you could always test out.” Piper shook her head. 

“I’ve made it this far, I can get through the last year.” Tony nodded as Piper clicked off the door lock. Happy had already dropped the rest of the team off at the school. Taking a deep breath Piper stepped out of the car and slung her bag over her shoulder. Several cameras clicked around her as she headed into the school, waving at her dad over her shoulder. The team waved at her from their lockers as she passed, it was odd knowing there weren’t SHEILD agents around every corner. Mary Jane Grinned and hugged her tight when she spotted her. 

“I was so worried that you wouldn’t be coming back!” Piper smiled. 

“I’m wondering why I did.” Piper said as a few other phone camera’s clicked around her. MJ shook her head. 

“Ignore them. This is just sped up Karma.” Piper raised an eyebrow at the redheads words as they made their way down the hall comparing schedules. “They used to ignore you, you were practically invisible. Now they’re invisible to you!” Piper shook her head.

“That does not sound like a good solution MJ.” MJ shrugged as they wounded the corner and Piper accidently bumped into someone knocking the books out of their arms. She didn’t spot who it was until she knelt to help them gather their books. Liz Allen’s dark eyes rolled at her as she snatched back her folder. 

“Well if it isn’t the newest celebrity here at school. You really think that just because Iron Man adopted you makes you better than anyone? Cause it doesn’t.” Piper was about to snap back at her when someone stepped between them. 

“Lay off her Liz, it’s getting old.” Piper stared as she realized who it was standing between them. It was Flash, wearing a black t-shirt under his lettermen jacket. He was facing away from Piper towards Liz a disapproving look on his face. Liz raised an eyebrow. 

“Really? You’re defending Parker? The hell happened to you this summer?” Piper didn’t voice it but she was wondering the same thing Liz was. The Flash she knew had been picking on her for years. They had briefly been friends when they were kids but then he’d gotten teased for hanging out with a girl. 

“Maybe I realized there are bigger things in life than shoving people in lockers. Maybe I decided to grow up, and you should to.” Liz blinked at Flash as the crowd that had gathered around them let out a low noise. 

“Whatever, don’t expect me to date someone who hangs with losers.” Flash didn’t even seem to blink as Liz walked away. Flash turned around and smiled slightly at Piper. 

“Hi.” Piper blinked at him for a moment which he seemed to take as a que to continue. “Listen, this has absolutely nothing to do with your dad. But I anted to say, I’m sorry. I’ve been a… well a dick to you for years. And I was wrong to do that.” Piper blinked again and spoke. 

“Why are you apologizing now?” Flash glanced down, fiddling with the edge of his shirt. 

“Something happened to me this summer that made me rethink the way I’ve been doing things. I’ve got a lot of apologizing to do, but you were one of the first people on my list.” He smiled slightly. Piper blinked at him for a moment then let herself smile slightly.

“That was very big of you Flash. Apology accepted.” Flash grinned and nodded. 

“Thanks.” They stood in an awkward silence. MJ grabbed Piper’s arm and began to lead her away. Flash waved and walked away. Piper shook her head.

“I’m pretty sure that’s the weirdest thing that has ever happened to me.” A familiar laugh behind them put a smile on Piper’s face. 

“I am very curious what trumps being adopted by Iron Man on the weirdness scale.” Piper hugged Harry tight and smiled at him. 

“Flash Thompson admitting he was a dick and apologizing for it.” Harry raised an eyebrow at her as he slung his arm around her shoulder, comparing his schedule to hers. 

“Yeah ok that’s pretty high up on the weird scale.” Piper nodded, MJ waved as she headed up the stairs. Harry and Piper had first period together and headed off for it. 

“I will admit though, if that’s the way senior year is going to go I think I can live with it.” Harry snorted a laugh as they entered the classroom. He sat down behind Piper and checked his watch. The bell rang and the teacher began to hand out his syllabus. Harry grinned to himself as he checked his watch again. It wasn’t displaying the time. It was displaying a progress bar as several hidden machines put together something he hoped would mean that he could protect Piper and make this school year the best of them all. He grinned again as she passed him a pen and smiled back at him. Yes, this year was going to be the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worry not there will be another story in this series. Hopefully I'll have the first chapter of that done in the next two weeks. My other stories are begging for attention, but I will do my best. Loving all the support for this AU though! Thank you guys so much. These stories are getting me through a very rough time and it's all because of the readers, love you guys.


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